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Targa New Zealand set to bring on one of the ‘big guns’ for 2015

13 October, 2015

 

Former V8 Supercar champion and Kiwi-racing great Greg Murphy will get his first taste of tarmac rallying when he fronts up for this year’s week-long Targa New Zealand event, which starts on Labour Day, Monday, October 26 in Auckland.

Murphy will be piloting the latest HSV Gen-F GTS, and part of his duties will include giving local dignitaries an insight into what it’s like to travel through selected special stages with an experienced race car driver. Murphy will also be offering ‘win a ride’ competition winners the same opportunity through closed special stages before the main competition field each day.

A second promo car will be driven by racing legend, and local motor-racing personality, ‘Racing Ray’ Williams, who will no doubt be providing passengers with an exhilarating experience.

The event finishes on Saturday, October 31 after 35 closed special stages comprising a total of 1035.5kms, linked by 1431.7kms of touring stages with overnight stops in Hamilton, New Plymouth (two nights), Palmerston North, and Havelock North before finishing back in Palmerston North (at The Square in the city).

For a full Targa programme and driver listing, be sure to check out the November issue of New Zealand Classic Car on sale October 19.

To finish first, first, you must build a winner

5 February, 2025

Can-Am royalty
Only three M20s were built, including the car that was destroyed at Road Atlanta. This car was later rebuilt. All three cars were sold at the end of the 1972 season. One of the cars would score another Can-Am victory in 1974, driven by a privateer, but the M20’s day was done. Can-Am racing faded away at the end of that season and was replaced by Formula 5000.
These days the cars are valued in the millions. It was unlikely that I would ever have seen one in the flesh if it hadn’t been that one day my editor asked me if I would mind popping over to Taranaki and having a look at a pretty McLaren M20 that somebody had built in their shed.
That is how I came to be standing by the car owned and built by truck driver Leon Macdonald.

Lunch with … Roly Levis

31 January, 2025

Lunching was not allowed during Covid 19 Lockdowns so our correspondent recalled a lunch he had with legendary New Zealand racing driver Rollo Athol Levis shortly before he died on 1 October 2013 at the age of 88. Michael Clark caught up with Roly and members of his family over vegetable soup