The Pivot

Kiwi rally star Hayden Paddon has withdrawn his entry for the opening round of the RSEA Safety Motorsport Australia Rally Championship in Canberra this month. He was to have switched from his locally built AP4+ Hyundai i20 to drive an i20 prepared to international R5 regulations. The withdrawal came as a result of Covid border restrictions between New Zealand and Australia. He was faced with committing to his New Zealand rally championship campaign and a one-off Australian outing that would have meant he couldn’t be back in New Zealand and rally-ready until June or July. “It’s disappointing. While we could get to Australia, current travel restrictions would then mean we would not be able to get back into NZ until July, missing the first three rounds of the NZ Championship.” Paddon said the Canberra event had special significance for him – though he had not contested it before, he spectated on the event 20 years ago and watched Kiwi rally legend Possum Bourne win driving a Group...

A picture tells a thousand words. This one on the ORANZ Facebook page? Closer to 2,000. My pic of Linc Whiddett racing his 450 Trophykart at the Stadium Championship, Manukau, mid-month. It scored the most views of all the MANY image posts on the page for this event. This kid's 13 years old, and was charging past drivers twice his age. He would have won his class - and did - but sadly, there's currently no class for Link's wee racer in the regular championship.   Likewise, Mad Mike (his dad) raced a Mazda rotary powered truck in similar colours (below, with a bit of Red Bull splashed into the mix) which would be a Thundertruck except there's an under-thunk ORANZ rule about not having transaxles in the class. The rule was rushed through by a bloke who isn't even racing these days. So to summarise: if you have a car with a 50 year old drivetrain made of plasticine and yanked out of a smashed up People's Car you have a place to race; if you have a truck with a tran...

More than 100 race cars and trucks will roar into action this weekend as the 2021 Stadium Offroad Racing Championship gets under way at Manukau. Stadium racing is the most spectacular in the sport, putting 15 or more top racers wheel to wheel at high speed on a fast and demanding race course in full view of spectator areas. The two-round championship is the sport’s first national-level series of 2021 and the first major title of the year after Covid 19 forced the cancellation of the national championship last year. It takes place on New Zealand’s newest race circuit at Colin Dale Park on Prices Road near Auckland Airport and racing starts at 1.00 pm this Saturday, February 13. National titles will be awarded in each class at the conclusion of the second round on Saturday March 6. Both rounds will be filmed for TV3's CRC Motorsport programme. Entries for the top race classes have hit maximum grid numbers, with more than 15 ThunderTrucks, the same number of unlimited ‘Pro1’ ...

Driving his favourite Toyota Racing Series single-seater, Invercargill racer Brendon Leitch stormed to a four-from-four victory in the new Formula Open category at the annual Skope Classic race meeting at Ruapuna near Christchurch. The new Formula Open category has been established to give competitive late model single seaters like the classic Formula Pacific/Atlantic cars, Formula Renault racers and Toyota Racing Series’ FT40 and FT50s a place to race. At the Skope, there were two races per day, all rolling start, with the final being the feature race. The racing featured full grids of 20 cars from TRS, Formula Renault and Formula Atlantic Leitch’s all-conquering Skope result comes on the heels of a hard-fought sixth place behind brother Damon at January’s New Zealand Grand Prix. “The Grand Prix was epic, and I had a fantastic duel with [eventual winner] Shane van Gisbergen.” By contrast, the Skope weekend did not start well. “We got there on the Friday and the car would onl...

Bryan ‘Yoda’ Chang is the first southern entry in the spectacular Thundertruck class at this month’s stadium offroad racing championship in Auckland. Driving his unlimited-class Chev ProLite race truck, multiple offroad racing champion Chang aims to bring the truck class trophy home to Christchurch. He is putting his rear wheel drive turbo-powered truck up against some tough opposition in a class that will have up to 15 trucks on the grid, many of them with V8 engines and four wheel drive. “It’s going to be epic. The V8 boys race hard and there’s a lot of vehicle to vehicle contact but the Chev is the product of a lot of development time and I’m keen to get amongst it,” he says. The Giti Tyres Chev was the first Thundertruck class vehicle to be built to American ProLite design plans. Chang relies on the truck’s light but strong construction to get him off the line as fast as the more powerful V8 truck, which are substantially heavier. “Those guys are running more powerful tr...