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Moore wins on Touring Cars return

3 December, 2015

Auckland driver Richard Moore has starred in his debut of the BNT NZ Touring Cars at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park over the weekend of November 28–29, by taking the class one–round win in his Holden Commodore. The class one–round podium rounded out with Simon Evans in second and Jason Bargwanna in third.

Moore notched up a third place in Saturday’s opening encounter, in what was a rain-affected race, as series leader Simon Evans speared off the track finishing well down the order.
Moore had actually won the race before a post-race investigation penalized 11 drivers for weaving across the track after the safety-car lights had gone out following the Evans incident.

A 10-second penalty relegated Moore to third place, with Jason Bargwanna in his Toyota Camry promoted to the race win.

Race conditions for Sunday’s two races saw clear skies and hot conditions greet drivers at the north Waikato circuit, where Evans fought back claiming two wins, and Moore was close behind with two second-place finishes.

Moore who worked twice as hard by also competing in the UDC V8 Ute series, taking the round win there, says the weekend result was the perfect way to get his ‘late’ championship campaign started.

“Unbelievable! I haven’t been in a car like this for 12 months. We won in the ute too, it was the perfect weekend really,” says Moore.

“Big thanks to our sponsor group GVI.kiwi, Mike Pero, and DownForce Advanced Driver Training — without them we wouldn’t have been here this weekend.

“It’s all about building the momentum now, keep the ball rolling. We’ll get some more sponsorship support between now and the next round, and hopefully continue the fight up front when the championship heads to the South Island in the new year.”

Simon Evans still leads the championship on 564 points, with Bargwanna in second on 505, and Tim Edgell in third on 445 points.

Class two was won by Wellington’s Brock Cooley, his first round win of the season. Auckland’s Brad Lathrope took second place ahead of Hamilton’s Simon Fleming who took third. The trio capitalizing on the misfortune of class-two championship leader Kevin Williams, who struck trouble in race two of the weekend with a DNF.

Photo credit: Simon Chapman

The butterfly effect

18 June, 2026

The man on the mountain bike pedalled over, taking it all in. Gazing in wonderment at this small Japanese coupe with butterfly doors, he said, “Wow, I have never seen one of these before. What is it?” When I told him it was a Toyota, he nearly fell off his bike.
The Toyota Sera is unique amongst ’90s Japanese coupes. The Sera, which is Italian for ‘evening’, can trace its roots back to Toyota’s AXV-II concept car. Launched as part of a trio of Toyota concept cars at the 1987 Tokyo Motor Show, it shared its underpinnings with the P70 Toyota Starlet. The similarities ended there, thanks to the AXV-II’s low-slung and rounded coupe styling with butterfly doors. These doors were held upright by gas struts when fully open. Glass covered the upper section of the doors and the rear hatchback.
These features, much to everyone’s surprise, were carried over to the production Sera in 1990. Toyota marketed the Sera, which means ‘will be’ in Spanish and ‘princess’ in Hebrew, as a funky alternative to the much-loved MR2.

Racing Mazdas

12 June, 2026

Both Rod Millen and Ron Kendall were rotary racing kings, emanating from the North Shore of Auckland, where I grew up. And the ultimate rotary techno guru was Bill Shiells, who developed the engine into a rocket ship while working out of Gulf Mazda in Takapuna from 1969, and later in his own business, Rotorsport. He began to extract some phenomenal horsepower from the enigmatic rotary engine. Bill was one of the first to race the Mazda RX-2 Coupe in 1971 and achieved immediate success, causing others to sit up and take notice, particularly the North Shore’s racing elite. They included Robbie Francevic, Rod Millen, Ron Kendall, John Woolf, John Le Feuvre, and Rex Findlay.