Pukekohe Raceway
December 7th, 2010 by NZ Classic Car
Living up to its name, Pukekohe’s ‘Thunder in the Park’ weekend, and the fourth round of the 2010/11 IRC Series, treated fans to a plethora of close racing and high speed action across ten diverse race classes.
Having gained a reputation in recent seasons as being a highlight of the New Zealand motorsport calendar, the 2010 Thunder in the Park event did little to disappoint, with Sunday in particular set under terrific weather conditions with the sun beating down upon the 200 plus entries scattered throughout the Pukekohe Park pit complex.
The inclusion of former NZV8 and Toyota Racing Series champions Kayne Scott and Earl Bamber into the GT1 class was the focus of many as the pair did battle at the front of the field in their Tranzam machines.
Despite setting blistering lap times (Scott with a 54.5 second lap in the final handicap race) Bamber failed to finish all three races, with Scott also DNFing the opening two, citing car trouble around the high speed, high risk Pukekohe circuit.
This left John Rae, Grant Brennan and GT2 class runner Graeme Barnes to share the three race wins; GT2 drivers Barnes and Jon Telford finishing in the top two positions in the final race after the weekend was initially dominated by Brian Gray and ‘The Metalman’ Clark Proctor.
In the NZGT class, acting as the junior GT1/GT2 series, Kevin Hyde took pole position and both the first and second race wins, with Tim James winning the finale.
The competition in the Bridgestone Porsches was some of the closest seen in years. Series front runners Ian Hayr and Conal Dempsey were joined by former GT3 Cup Challenge regular David Mackrell in his 996 Cup Car, taking the top three qualifying positions between them, covered by only half a second.
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March 31st, 2010 by NZ Classic Car
The NZ Festival of Motorsport celebrating Bruce McLaren was held over two weekends, last month. We have a full event report in the April issue of Classic Car magazine, but there were too many histroic racers and too much action for us to fit all the photos into the magazine. Rather than waste them, we have just loaded all the photos online for you to enjoy.
To see all the historic racing action from Pukekohe click on the link below and start browsing from the second installment of 146 images.
Photo Credit: Chris Poland
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January 29th, 2010 by NZ Classic Car
The New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing shifts from Hampton Downs to Pukekohe Park Raceway this weekend. More than 120 of the world’s most iconic and valuable historic race cars have travelled to NZ to take part in the festival and racing will start from 9am tomorrow.
There are almost 400 entries — with cars valuing tens of millions of dollars — confirmed. A total of 123 are international entries and organisers believe this is easily the largest amount of cars to travel to the country for a motor sports event.
Cars from Ferrari, Chevrolet, Lotus, Aston Martin, MG, Lola, March, Cooper and Brabham are all confirmed, as are cars from home constructors McRae, Begg and of course, McLaren. Many have been rebuilt or restored specifically for the meetings.
The cars date from the fifties through to the mid seventies and the racing will include ten classes for single seaters, sports cars and saloons and the highlights will be one of the biggest ever fields assembled of Formula 5000 cars and a field of spectacular CanAm cars, including McLaren’s that raced in the hands of Kiwi legends Denny Hulme and Bruce Mclaren himself.
In keeping with the period cars, all spectators to the event are being encouraged to wear period clothing from the fifties and sixties. “We really do want everyone to get into the spirit of the event,” commented event organiser Jim Barclay. ”This will be like a trip back in time and it would be great to see some of the many superbly restored and well-cared for classic cars in New Zealand come out for those weekends.”
“If the event is a success it has a great chance of becoming one of just a handful of globally recognised international historic motoring events, alongside the likes of the Goodwood Revival, Pebble Beach in the USA and the Philip Island meeting in Australia.”
Entries have come from Australia, the United Kingdom, the USA, Denmark, Belgium and even Dubai with around 1,000 international motorsport visitors expected to descend on New Zealand.
There is a show and shine evening tonight (Jan 29th) with the racing starting tomorrow (Jan 30) at 9am.
Tickets are available at the gate and vary in price from $30 – $110
To find out more head to www.nzfmr.co.nz
March 20th, 2009 by NZ Classic Car
The Historic Racing Club has two days of classic motorsport planned for this weekend, with a packed race programme.
Saturday’s racing will include the AES TradeZone Series, Historics, Alfa Romeo Trofeo Series, Castrol BMW E30 Group 1 & 2, Muscle Cars, Tracer Series, Castrol BMW Open, ING Classic Trial, Super Historics and Sports Cars and Arrow Wheels Sports & GT Challenge.
A similarly full programme for Sunday will include a series of special races, including an eight-lap staggered reverse grid Muscle Car race, the Jim Palmer AES TradeZone race, Geoff Manning Historics, Jim Richards Muscle Cars, Ray Williams Arrow Wheels Sports & GT Challenge, Dennis Marwood Alfa Romeo Trofeo Series, Ross Jensen BMW E30 Group 1, Ralph Watson ING Classic Trial, Ross Jensen BMW E30 Group 2, Leo Leonard Tracer Series, Ross Jensen BMW Open and Ferris de Joux Super Historics / Sports Cars.
Racing starts on Saturday at 10am and on Sunday at 9am, head out to Pukekohe and be part of the action.
