Racing line: carnage in the wet at Ruapuna

22 January, 2016

Andre Heimgartner returned to the BNT NZ Touring Car Championship over the weekend of January 16–17 at Ruapuna in great style, capturing the round win at the fourth event of the championship.

Heimgartner claimed two race wins and a second placing in the final race of the weekend, which was won by championship leader Simon Evans.

Evans’ race-three win may have been in jeopardy following a lap-one clash with Scott Taylor, but a post-race investigation deemed it a racing incident and no penalty was applied.

For Heimgartner, who has returned to the championship after a year of competing in the Australian V8 Supercar championship, says it was a pleasing weekend in what were wet and trying race conditions over all three races.

“It was a tricky weekend — the weather certainly played a part. It was a fun weekend though, we didn’t finish a single race with the same conditions that we started with; I really enjoyed it,” said Heimgartner.

Race three was a reverse grid, which saw Heimgartner start from the rear of the field, forcing him to push hard in the early stages of the race.

“I made some good places off the start, but then found myself caught up in the Evans/Taylor incident and was then almost last again, so I had to battle through the pack to get back up the front.

“Simon is driving really well at the moment, so it’s nice to be able to come and challenge him. I’m really looking forward to Teretonga next weekend [January 23–24] where we can have another go.”

In class two, the weekend was largely dominated by series newcomer Sam Barry of Waipukurau who qualified on pole and scored a race win and a second place in the weekend’s opening two races.

However his points lead was short-lived when he failed to finish race three after he was caught up in a multi-car incident at turn one, which ended his weekend in the sand trap.

The class-two race-three win eventually went to Wellington’s Brock Cooley, which saw him tie on round points with Invercargill’s Liam MacDonald.

The round win went to MacDonald based on a higher qualifying position from earlier in the weekend.

With MacDonald only competing in part of the championship, it is now Cooley who has his eye on the class-two championship.

“It was a great weekend for us in the Speedy Signs Ford. We banked some valuable points for our championship campaign, and we’re now leading it. I’m really pleased with how the weekend has gone,” said Cooley.

“Brad Lathrope is still in the championship hunt, so we’ll have to be mindful of him going forward and make sure we continue to finish ahead of him and maintain that margin.”

The BNT NZ Touring Cars will race again over the weekend of Jan 23–24 at Teretonga near Invercargill.

Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

29 September, 2026

Thankfully, a few of these cars made it to New Zealand, the odd one being imported from the UK over the years. However, the 1988 British Racing Green example owned by Bill Slater in Upper Hutt was originally sold as a standard car but converted using the full Janspeed kit by the first owner within a couple of years of buying it.
Bill has owned a few other Jaguars. In fact, after he sold his Jaguar XJ12 in 2018, he found himself pining for another and, when the XJ-S came up for sale, he could not resist it. Having just sold the V12, he was not expecting much from the six-cylinder car other than more reliability and it being cheaper to keep on the road. Naturally, he had heard of the influence Janspeed had on the marque, but it was not until he took the car for a test drive that he became aware of just how superior it was to the car he had just sold. The price of a second-hand Janspeed XJ-S and that of a standard 3.6 XJ-S is quite comparable, making the Janspeed version an incredible bargain, even more so in comparison with other performance classic cars — or even modern cars, for that matter — which cost far more bucks for the bang.

The writing on the wall

25 September, 2026

Deven, a digital content producer in his 20s, says it was the rear-drive Nissan and Toyota drift cars that fired his imagination in his not-so-distant youth and soon had him wanting one of his own. However, like most of us, he had to start in something less glamorous – in his case, a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. After that, he bought a four-litre V8 1991 Toyota Soarer, a big change from the Mitsubishi.
“It was my daily driver, and it wasn’t that bad to run back when petrol was affordable,” he says.
When he got fed up with filling it up, Deven bought a 1989 Ford Laser sedan, a 1.3-litre five-speed manual, to be his daily driver. It’s in very good condition, bought from a careful older driver, and he still runs it – although he will occasionally also drive the latest in a series of Nissan Laurel sedans. His current one, from 1993, has done the lowest number of kilometres yet, at 183,000. It has the single-cam version of the engine in his Skyline.
“I’ve had four different versions of that car. It was just a car I always liked. It’s really comfortable, quite luxurious. I bought it from a 90-year-old in Hamilton. It’s in mint condition, and everything is standard.”

Racing line: carnage in the wet at Ruapuna

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