It's crunch time both on and off the track over the next few days, with Dunedin playing host to the national speedway super saloon championships, the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship wrapping up in Taupo this weekend, and the winner of the New Zealand Car of the Year trophy due to be announced next week.
As far as Beachlands Speedway is concerned, the super saloon meeting is the big event of the season. Some 40 drivers here from across the country, with fancied locals such as Ricky Boulton and Terry Soper quick enough to take the fight to the best of the visitors. And youth saloons, streetstocks and the Otago production championship classes running in support on what is a packed card of racing.
The Beachlands action got under way last night with qualifying, but today is finals time, with racing from 5pm.
Up in Taupo, a three-way fight for the Oceania Championship title looms, concluding a series that kicked off in mid-January down in this part of the country at Highlands Park.
Austrian racer Charlie Wurz, Kiwi Callum Hedge and American Jacob Abel all remain in contention for top honours.
It’s Wurz, the son of former F1 racer Alexander Wurz, who holds the points advantage heading into this weekend. Hedge is just 10 points back, and so in clear contention, while Abel — 22 points adrift — is a longer shot for title success.
The trio will be racing against 16 other drivers in the Toyota wings-and-slicks single-seater category at Taupo ¯, which should make for some decent racing today and tomorrow. The other competitors include Dutchman Laurens van Hoepen, who joined the series late, and so — despite winning last weekend’s New Zealand Grand Prix in some style — is not in contention for the championship crown.
Winning the Oceania Championship crown is about more than bragging rights too, as the title winner will ‘‘earn’’ 18 prized super licence points. These are the points a driver must accumulate in order to progress to Formula One, where 40 super licence points earned over the past three seasons is one of the requirements to race.
Late next week, the winner of the 2022 New Zealand Car of the Year will also be announced.
The dozen models selected as finalists for this award have already been revealed. To recap, they comprise (in strictly alphabetical order): the BMW iX; BYD Atto 3; Ford Everest; Hyundai i20 N; Kia EV6 and Kia Sportage; Lexus NX; Mercedes-AMG EQS 53 and Mercedes-Benz C-Class; Mitsubishi Outlander; Polestar 2 and Tesla Model Y.
Regular readers will have noticed that road tests of all the finalists have appeared in Drivesouth in the past few months, including most recently the BYD Atto 3 last weekend and the flagship variant of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class today.
The NZ Car of the Year is an award made by the national Guild of Motoring Writers, and the voting members include my fellow Drivesouth contributor Richard Bosselman, and me, along with Bob Nettleton, who contributes motoring reviews to our sister publication, The Star.
Be sure to check out Drivesouth next weekend to see which of the finalists has scooped the big prize.
- David Thomson. Photo: Getty Images
