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Nascar bloopers: here comes the boom!

8 August, 2016

A bizarre situation unfolded during the Nascar Xfinity series race at Watkins Glen over the weekend of August 6–7. Derrike Cope’s No. 70 Chevrolet Nascar was coasting through the bus-stop zone, when something under the bonnet of his vehicle exploded, blowing the bonnet off and bursting a tyre. 

Nascar are said to be impounding the car and will examine the remains to figure out what exactly went wrong, to prevent such failures in the future. 

“In my 35 years of racing, I’ve never experienced anything like that,” driver Derrike Cope said. “It blew up in my face.”

It’s still not quite clear as to what happened, but maybe you have some ideas, so let us know in the comments below. 

A second dose of Dash

24 April, 2025

When the car arrived in Wellington in December 2018 it was duly taken along for entry certification. Vehicle Inspection NZ (VINZ) found some wrongly wired lamps and switches — not too bad — but, much more significantly, some poor welding repairs. As the structural problems were probed more thoroughly, we realized the previous owner’s restoration would not do and we needed an upgrade. Dash had made it into the country but it would take some time and money before he would be free to explore any of New Zealand’s scenic highways.
We took the car to our new home in Johnsonville in the northern suburbs of Wellington and I pored over the car in detail to figure out what was next. There were lots of new parts on the car and a very perky reconditioned drivetrain but the chassis needed serious work.

Lunch with… Jim Palmer

16 April, 2025

In the 1960s, Hamilton’s Jim Palmer won the prestigious ‘Gold Star’ four times and was the first resident New Zealander home in the New Zealand Grand Prix on five consecutive occasions. He shared the podium with Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme, Jackie Stewart, and Chris Amon. The extent of his domination of the open-wheeler scene in New Zealand will probably never be matched or exceeded. Yet he’s always been modest about his achievements.