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Revved Up And Turning Back The Clock
The first weekend of the double header Gulf New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing proved the event has come of age with a big crowd on both days, plenty of international interest from competitors and media and some great racing to pay tribute to the country's only Formula One world champion, Denny Hulme.
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The country's largest historic racing event is more akin to a fast museum than to a hot bed of hard racing, but if you want to see some of the sport's greatest cars stretching their legs, then this is the place to see it.
New Zealand has a rich history in driving and in motorsport engineering and the biggest annual gathering of Formula 5000 cars - big open single seaters that were the equal of F1 cars in their day - is a mouth-watering prospect for the drivers and the fans alike. Veteran racer Kenny Smith, who raced these things in their heyday four decades ago and has never stopped racing, showed his class again with three exciting wins in a car rebuilt after a major accident at Manfeild and only finished hours before it was scheduled to take to the Hampton Downs circuit.
This year, the F5000s were joined by a small, but impressive field of Can-Am machines, the series Denny Hulme won way back in 1968. The very car he used is almost at the end of its long road of restoration here in New Zealand and it was a huge draw card, even though minor details meant it could not be started or run on track. Four other McLarens from the period thundering their way along Hampton Downs spectacular front straight was more than enough to compensate for that absentee.
It's an event which is gaining international credibility with every passing year and with Denny Hulme in mind, more than 100 international drivers made the long trek with their cars to the event, each driver packed with amazing stories of their own racing adventures and of those of their cars.
Group A - the types of car used in the Wellington Street Races - drew a big field and plenty of admiration from the knowledgeable crowds, and the Historic Muscle Cars enjoyed a fantastic weekend too.
The best part of the meeting from a spectators point of view is that they'll all be back next weekend for another chapter in this amazing event's life. Back to back weekends make it a much more economical way to go racing for home drivers and much more appealing racing holiday for international guests.
You can enjoy your motor racing time travel next Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the North Waikato track and if you are lucky, you'll catch a glimpse of the big names from the sport who love to come along - Richards, Radisich, Amon, Ganley, Marwood. They're all kicking around on or off track.
PaddockTalk Perspective
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