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Race to the Sky: the longest gravel hill-climb event in the world

1 February, 2015

The return of New Zealand’s iconic Race to the Sky hill climb, managed by the team from Highlands Motorsport Park, is heavily anticipated by motorsport fans around the globe. It will take place on April 17–19, 2015, with Repco New Zealand jumping onboard as the main sponsor.

The Repco Race to the Sky is run on the gravel access road, which climbs over 1000m from the floor of Central Otago’s Cardrona Valley up to the Snow Farm and Snow Park in the Pisa mountain range. The Highlands’ team aims to keep the hill-climb course as close as possible to the original 14.5km course, which last ran eight years ago.

Highlands’ business development manager, Josie Spillane, says, “The Repco Race to the Sky presented by Highlands is now the longest gravel hill-climb event in the world since the sealing of America’s famed Pikes Peak hill-climb course. Undoubtedly, motorsport fans around the globe will be tuning into our event.”

Mark Brunton, executive general manager of Repco New Zealand, says, “The Repco team is delighted to be involved with the return of such an iconic New Zealand event as Race to the Sky. Repco has been part of the fabric of the New Zealand automotive industry for over 90 years and this partnership aligns Repco with a premier event on New Zealand’s — and the world’s — motorsport stage.

Under the stewardship of Grant Aitken, the Race to the Sky was last held in 2007 when world-renowned veteran driver Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima (64) claimed his eighth victory out of nine starts.

Since Tony Quinn and his team at Highlands announced in August that they were resurrecting the Race to the Sky, the interest from competitors and fans has been non-stop. Quinn says, “As we all know, the agreement to use the road accessing the Snow Farm and Snow Park ended, so we’ve spent considerable time talking with the new generation of landowners and other parties now involved and are very pleased a new agreement could be reached.

“It’s exciting to see how much people are looking forward to the event coming back, but I’m cautious not to build it up too much. The important thing is to make sure we run it as well as it should be and let’s see how we go from there.”

No stranger to fast cars, Quinn is having an 800hp, 800kg hill-climb car built by respected race car builder Paul Ceprnich in Melbourne so he can contest the event for the first time against numerous former competitors, including Tajima, who returns with an all-electric vehicle. Queenstown-based Aitken will also be taking the opportunity of contesting the event for the first time, rather than being the event organizer.

Highlands’ general manager Mike Sentch says, “In the first year we want to grow the reputation and legacy of the event with the vision of it holding its own on the world stage and capturing the imagination and competitive spirit of some international stars. We’re absolutely delighted to be working with Repco as we recreate an event that captured the imaginations of motorsport fans around New Zealand and the world.”

Proposed categories for the 2015 event include:

Cars:

  •    International unlimited
  •    Four-wheel-drive open
  •    Two-wheel-drive 0–2000cc open
  •    Two-wheel-drive 2001cc and over open
  •    Rallycourse (co-driver)
  •    Classic cars (pre-1982)

Bikes:

  •   Lightweight
  •   Middleweight
  •   Heavyweight

Quads:

  •    Light quads
  •    Super quads

Buggy and off-roader

Side by side

NZ Classic Car magazine, September/October 2026 issue 407, on sale now

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“The owner offered it to his grandchildren, and they didn’t want it, so he got the guy out at Mosgiel in the Mobil petrol station to sell it for him, and he put it on Trade Me for them. We never met the owner, and we were always dealing with the guy at the petrol station. We put a bid on it, and we were the only people that bid on it.”
Their bid was eventually successful, eight years ago. Not knowing much of the history, in situations like that, it’s always a risk buying a car, but they were in for a bit of a surprise.

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Say the word ‘bond’ to anyone in the street and around 80 per cent straight away think of pop culture’s least-secret secret agent. The other 20 per cent may think of the wad of cash required to secure a flat or hire equipment that one gets back providing the fixtures and fittings stay much as they were.
However, mention ‘bond’ in specialist classic car circles and people will spin a very different yarn. If you dig deep enough, you will find an eccentric British carmaker that, throughout its 23 years in business, spawned some quirky and charming little cars.
The company was founded by Paul Sharp in 1922 under the name of Sharp’s Commercials Limited. However, the company did not start producing cars until 1948. The first car to carry the Bond name was the Bond Minicar. A three-wheeled, soft-top, two-cylinder eco car, the Minicar was a big hit at the time as the desire for an economical urban runabout that didn’t attract four-wheel car tax was strong in post-war Britain. All in all, 34,285 Minicars were produced over 26 years in a variety of variants.