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Black Belt Battle: Masterton Motorplex comp season kicking off

27 November, 2018

 

 

The weekend of 8–9 December will see round one of the Masterton Motorplex comp season kick off, and regulars to the track will not only be greeted by the welcome sight of absolutely gigantic timing boards, which where installed over winter, but also round one of the newly formed Outlaw 71 class,we mentioned in Issue No. 162. A full field of 16 racers are expected to run the five-round nationwide series, vying for their share of the $15,000 prize pool, which begins and ends at Masterton.

Outlaw 71 is the brain child of Gavin Doughty and Tod Aitken, and as the name suggests, welcomes any type of race car as long as it runs a belt-driven roots or screw blower with a dial-in between 6.5 and 7.9 seconds. Unique to the class is the reaction-time qualification system to ensure that it’s not always the fastest car nabbing the top qualifying spot. Organizer Gavin Doughty explains: “It’s all about putting on a show!” This is why the class has also adopted another unique aspect in its racer-return format, which means that the full field of 16 cars will contest each of the four rounds during a meeting, and a very tight points format will mean that the competition will go down to the wire.

Clearly it has excited racers, with the likes of Brent Whittingham’s Camaro, Mark Gapp’s Willys, Craig Griffith’s rear-engined dragster, Kendal Smith’s Altered, JD Shepherd’s FED, and Murray Hartley’s brand-new Mustang imported from Australia, all signed up to race.

The Great River Road

4 July, 2025

A few years ago my family, knowing my fondness for driving, gave me the book Unforgettable Road Trips: Thirty-Six Drives of a Lifetime by Martin Derrick. Most of the road trips listed take less than a day in places like Scotland, Monaco, and Australia, plus one in New Zealand. Most of these places were too far to go just for a short drive but four of them would take several days. My interest was piqued, and those four drives were added to the bucket list. To date, I have done three of them: ‘Route 66’ (USA 21 days), ‘State Highway 6’ (NZ 10 days) and ‘The Great River Road’ (USA 22 days). You can drive all of them in less time, but you could also fly over them. We wanted a decent immersion in their charms.
The great river referred to is the Mississippi. While the name conjures the deep south, the river actually starts at the bottom of the great lakes, before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico about 3800km later. The great road is more of a concept than a specific strip of tarmac, as you can drive down either side of the river on various routes. Regardless of which side you drive, time should be kept aside for detours to places such as Nashville, which is famous for something or other.

A diamond in the rough

24 June, 2025

Two years ago, Lew finished a thorough restoration and the impressive ute has taken on a new life and colour. Lew plays down the amount of effort required but, despite his protestations, I suspect he put a lot of time into the project. A few unwanted tenants were evicted along the way.
“It didn’t take me long. There had been mice living in the firewall, which had caused a bit of damage. It apparently broke down and was pushed into a shed. It was 20 years to the day when I pulled it out and it sat in my other shed for 3 years before I started on it. That’s why it’s in such good order — it’s been kept in a shed for so long and still is.”