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NZV8 Touring Cars TLX and TL Championship

16 June, 2014

 


After much drama in and outside of Sunday’s races, Nick Ross won the NZV8 Touring Cars TLX Championship, a title he has hunted with vigour since entering the series in 2002.

Ross, driving a Holden Commodore came to Pukekohe Park Raceway trailing Toyota Camry driver Jason Bargwanna by 61 points. The Australian suffered engine problems in race one on Saturday morning and then again that afternoon allowing Ross to have one hand on the trophy.

On Sunday morning in race three, Ross and Bargwanna looked as though they were in for another one of their epic battles until a safety car period, followed by another incident at the restart, resulted in the field crossing the finish line behind the safety car with much anticlimax.

Ross was leading at the flag, and was thought to have taken the title, until he was deemed to have been travelling too slow at the restart and was relegated to fourth place leaving the championship battle still open.

“We are supposed to be between 70 and 80 (kph) but I just had a brain fade and kept it at 60,” said Ross.

Dramas continued in the afternoon when, in the final race, Ross took the lead only to have Bargwanna pass him and pull a small gap.

All Ross needed was to finish the race and he would take the title which he had chased for 12 years.

The crowd started to become excited as they saw puffs of smoke coming from Ross’ Holden, after seeing two engine blowouts already on the Saturday.

Bargwanna increased the gap and Hamilton’s Lance Hughes was beginning to catch the Cambridge driver as the smoke became worse, but Ross eventually took the flag in second place to win the round and the NZV8 Touring Cars TLX Championship.

“I’m really happy to get the title after all this time. It’s been 12 years,” said Ross.

After 12 years chasing the title in a series of Holden Commodores, Nick Ross will be entering next season in a brand new Nissan Altima TLX car, upon which he will proudly place the number one.

Hamilton’s Lance Hughes finished in third place over Auckland’s Shaun Varney and Turua’s AJ Lauder.


Sunday also saw Ian Booth win the NZV8 Touring Cars TL Championship. He won the title over Lower Hutt’s James McLaughlin after a very consistent season.

Scoring only his second race win on Sunday, ironically his first win was also at Pukekohe in the opening round in November, he won the championship with one race up his sleeve.

Coming into the weekend there was a slim gap between the pair of just 11 points, but McLaughlin had one of those weekend’s that he would rather forget.

“Going into the weekend I was quite settled for second place actually knowing what James is like so I was quite relaxed when I thought I wouldn’t win but then that all changed when he had problems in qualifying,” said Booth.

“We had a 100 per cent record this season. My chief mechanic, Mark Dalton, has just been fantastic and he would be down there working on the car when I don’t even know he is there,” he said.

Turua’s Brad Lauder — the only other driver with a chance of moving up ahead of the two leaders — had a rough weekend with incidents in both race two and three which kept him out of touch with Booth.

With the title under his belt, Ian Booth has stated he will not be racing next season to concentrate on his job as chairman of the series.

“I’m going to call it quits at this stage. I need to stop racing and drive this series to the next level,” said Booth

“There is a lot of interest in the TLXs. We are definitely having more of them for next season and to continue this momentum forward I need to stop racing and focus on making this class what it really should be — and that’s the best premiere class in New Zealand.

“I honestly believe that in three to four years the numbers and quality of the field will be as good as it ever was and I have no problems or qualms with that at all,” he said.

The NZV8 Touring Cars are a two-class series with the TLX category supporting Toyota Camry, Holden Commodore, Nissan Altima, and Ford Falcon with interest coming from other brands.

The TL category offers very competitive racing with the original specification NZV8 Touring Cars hosting the traditional and popular Ford versus Holden battle.

The new season is due to restart this coming November.

Coaching from the bench: Casting plastic knobs and rubber parts

16 July, 2026

Casting rubber items is simple if you have a good original to work with. The item doesn’t have to be perfect. You can use plasticine to smooth out cracks, and you can even make whole prototypes out of low-fire modelling clay available from craft stores if you need to. Prototypes can also be made of wood or metal.
You will need mould dams to contain the liquid urethane moulding solution until it cures. You can build boxes out of strips of wood, but I have found that small plastic boxes and bowls such as those you would use for leftovers in your fridge work well if you spray them with a mould release agent.
Temperature is important to the chemical processes involved, so work in an area that can be maintained at around 20 degrees. You will also need adequate ventilation because the fumes can be dangerous to breathe. And you will want to wear latex gloves to protect your hands.

Fraser Cars – low flying into the fourth decade

10 July, 2026

With almost three and a half decades under its belt, Fraser Cars is one of New Zealand’s longest-surviving car manufacturers. The company first opened its doors for business in 1988, during the boom time for kit manufacturers. During the ’80s, around 40 different companies were building kits and turnkey cars for this niche market. Of those, only Fraser and Almac Cars (established 1981) are still in business today.
Most of the new kit car companies were killed off in the cradle by the threat of new legislation that never eventuated and definitively by the sudden availability of high-performance Japanese cars when the floodgates to second-hand imports were opened. The now long-retired founder of the company, Neil Fraser, first came across Lotus Seven replicas while racing Lotus Cortinas in the early ’80s. He regularly found himself racing against a little Caterham, a Lotus Seven–styled car built in England. He was very impressed by its simplicity and handling. In 1986 Fraser built his own Lotus Seven–type car, using the knowledge he had gained from several close looks at the Caterham.