Quick Quiz: show us what you know about Pukekohe Park Raceway, and be in to win!

6 October, 2015

Pukekohe Park Raceway is widely considered to be the home of New Zealand motorsport. For many, it’s the location where their love affair with all things fast first kicked off — many a fan quick to proclaim that they know everything about the place they lovingly refer to as ‘Puke’.

But how well do you know Pukekohe Park Raceway? We’ve assembled a list of questions about the sacred grounds at the southernmost point of Auckland, and, if you take the quiz, you’ll be in to win an awesome V8 Supercars ITM 500 Auckland, 6-8 November prize package consisting of two three-day Platinum Reserved Grandstand tickets, as well as two Paddock passes — all adding up to a total value of over $500!

To enter, all you need to do is complete the quiz below, then fill out the form underneath with a few of your details, and your quiz score. It’s as easy as that! 

Pukekohe Park Raceway: take the quiz and be in to win

The butterfly effect

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

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.