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Kiwi rally star Hayden Paddon has withdrawn his entry for the opening round of the RSEA Safety Motorsport Australia Rally Championship in Canberra this month.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...

I never saw the like. The first motor race I watched live and trackside as media was the 1985 Benson and Hedges 500 at Pukekohe. Ray 'what briefcase' Smith and Denny sharing a gold Holden. Sunburn, leggy young ladies in short (short) shorts, sunhats and filmy blouse things. A classic (horrible) Pukekohe hotdog (cure for constipation!). We travelled there and back in my mate Daine's green and silver 240Z. Bit of a perfect day really. There have been a fair few races flit past the lens of my SLR since then. But this weekend I saw the race of races. I watched speechless as Shane van Gisbergen won the 66 th New Zealand Grand Prix in a storming drive from from dead-last in pit lane to a 2.2 second lead at the flag. The NZ Motor Cup becomes his first trophy of 2021, coming on the heels of his 2020 Bathurst 1000 win, a class win in the Rally of Auckland and the outright win at the inaugural Battle of Jacks Ridge late last year. The 2016 Supercars champion had won the first t...

LIVING THE DREAM "Not many people can say they have driven an F1 car. But Christchurch's Marcus Armstrong can. The 20-year-old motor racing driver was given the chance to test drive Ferrari's 2018 F1 car yesterday as part of Ferrari's season opening testing at the famed Fiorano track in Maranello, Italy. Armstrong jumped at the opportunity and said it was "fulfilling a childhood dream". "Since I was a young boy this has been a dream. "It's the start of a process and I'm massively grateful just to get the opportunity. "Not many racing drivers get to drive an F1 car so experience is super valued and extremely vital." Armstrong, an F2 driver recently joined team DAMS for the upcoming season set to commence in March, but hoped to find himself behind the wheel of an F1 car again soon. ...

ARMSTRONG FULFILS A LIFELONG DREAM WITH FERRARI F1 TEST  New Zealand driver Marcus Armstrong ticked off a lifelong dream in late January when he was one of seven drivers invited to test a 2018 car for Scuderia Ferrari. The Kiwi is the first NZ driver ever to join the Ferrari Driver Academy and is the first to test for Ferrari since the days of Chris Amon. “This has been my dream ever since I can remember. First, to test in an F1 car and second to do so for Ferrari. It’s been an amazing experience. Obviously it’s so very fast, but also the team operation is incredible.” Under category rules driver prospects are not allowed to test in more recent machinery. Armstrong has also confirmed he will switch to the French DAMS team for the FIA Formula 2 season, which starts at Bahrain next month. The 2021 FIA Formula 2 season starts at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit on March 27 and 28. There are three races in each event this year, and eight events in total. All F2 races are at Formu...

  Strange days in interesting times. The F3 'Asia' Championship doesn't happen in Asia this year, instead bouncing between circuits in the Arab nations.  Then the start of the series gets bumped back, presumably because of Covid concerns. Now Guan You Zhou is doing Asia F3???? Like Mitch Evans' team mate Artem Markelov coming to New Zealand to do TRS from his GP2 gig that time, or what?     Official Prema media release: "Abu Dhabi Racing by PREMA is delighted to announce the team’s line-up for the upcoming F3 Asian Championship, starting on January 29 and 30 at Dubai Autodrome. Guan Yu Zhou will enter the full championship, the Chinese racer making a welcome return to the team. Zhou raced with PREMA Powerteam in the Italian Formula 4 Championship and Formula 3 European Championship, emerging as a highly competitive contender. As previously announced, Dino Beganovic will share one car with his Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine team-mate David Vidale...

  My favourite event in all of racing and rallying is happening right now in the searing wastes of off-highway Saudi Arabia: the Dakar. It's mad. Hammering flat out across dunes, down 'roads', over huge distances, for days at a time. The motorsport equivalent of the Tour de France. It nearly didn't happen though. The organisers have revealed how close the race came to being stymied by fell victim to 'The Covid'. Like so many others. Saudi Arabia announced the closure of its land, sea and air borders just 13 days before the start of the second Dakar in the Arabian Peninsula, responding to the new more virulent strain of Covid that is running rampant in Britain and has since spread to other countries. You can imagine - that set off all the alarms at organiser Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO). But, in the face of the restrictions imposed by Saudi Arabia to limit the spread of COVID-19, ASO chartered 18 flights to get officials, crew and competitors to the event....