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Didn't see a thread for the SuperTourers so I thought I would make one. Anyway this weekend they are at Pukekohe Park for the Fuchs 500, which is the last Endurance race for the 2014/2015 season. Race #1 for the NZST's have already happened with Simon Evans & Shane Van Gisbergen of Smeg Racing taking the checkers. There are several current & past V8 Supercar drivers coming over to co-drive for several teams for this weekend and the other enduro races this year. (SVG, Slade, D'Alberto, Percat, Owen, Paul Morris etc.). The races are normally streamed internationally on their YouTube page so check later tonight for a stream for race #2, race #3 and possibly some support races as well (they streamed NZ SuperTrucks last night as well). Of the primary drivers currently, Simon Evans would lead the points (SVG actually leading currently but he is a co-driver this season so unless something changes to where he can get a primary ride for the rest of the races. Which is now slightly possible for all V8SC drivers with no known conflicting dates for the 2015 season)

2014/2015 BNT NZ SuperTourers Calendar:
09/27-28/2014 - Taupo Motorsport Park - Rush Security Taupo 400 - Enduro
11/01-02/2014 - Hampton Downs Motorsport Park - Waikato 400 - Enduro
11/28-29/2014 - Pukehoke Park Raceway - Fuchs 500 - Enduro
01/31-02/01/2015 - Hampton Downs Motorsport Park - Waikato 250
03/07-08/2015 - Timaru International Motor Raceway - Timaru 250
03/21-22/2015 - Mike Pero Motorsport Park - Christchurch 250
04/11-12/2015 - Pukehoke Park Raceway - Fuchs 250

Fuchs 500 Pukehoke - 11/28-29/14 - Streams/Full Races:

So you missed nothing, but alot at the same time if you didn't watch race #3. Alot of drama. Had a rain period in the first half of the race, but the track dried pretty quickly so it was basically who could get slicks at the right time. Murphy did it on the restart (which was a crazy move at the time with rain still falling) and lost too much time between the track being too wet and on the restart itself. SVG did it about 7 laps later and set quick race time of the weekend when the track had a really good dry line But yeah, SVG came from a lap down to win.

This was Greg Murphy's final race in the series, although I'm sure we'll see him back in the Enduros in the V8 Supercars, also fun fact, Simon Evans is GP2 racer Mitch Evans older brother

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

Simon Evans and Shane Van Gisbergen have been penalized in race #3 of the Pukehoke round that was ran 1 month ago for having 5 crew members over the wall on a pit stop (can only have 4). The race win was taken away which means Mitch Cunningham and Cameron Waters get the race win and Tim Edgell and Steve Owen get the overall round win.

They took a month to realise that? Great officiating.

Sadly there is a lot of politics in NZ motorsports at the moment, in particular around the whole V8 touring car style racing, the NZV8's used to reign king and raced over the summer but were using cars that were getting old and there looked like no sign of any change which is when a new series the Super Tourers came along 2012 which offered racing throughout the year as well as endurance races, pretty much all the top drivers and teams from NZV8's jumped ship from the NZV8's into Super Tourers. So it started off with a hiss and a roar and really looked liked V8 racing in NZ was entering a new better era, the big problem was that Motorsport New Zealand (MSNZ) didn't sanction the series so any officiating was done by the series itself. There were also dramas with some tracks not wanting to host the Super Tourers due to allegiances with MSNZ and NZV8's which were still running a series over the summer months and had been forced to introduce a new chassis of which only 3 or 4 were built while the rest of the field used the older cars, but the series had no where near the appeal of the Super Tourers and in my opinion had a bunch of no bodies racing in a grid depleted of numbers and sadly the large summer racing meets of a few years ago were basically killed off. Things got interesting though when the Super Tourer cars started getting quite a few mechanical failures, the engines in particular were a problem early on and the costs on the teams slowly went up and up and up which has driven a number of the stars which switched over from NZV8's intially to pull out of the series, things seem to have only been downhill for Super Tourers since with people disenchanted with how it's being run, rumors of cheating and a fractured calendar with poor publicity. For this season Super Tourers are running at events organised by MSNZ, the spilt in V8 racing here is something I liken to the spilt in Indycar racing back in the 90's, there simply couldn't be two series fighting for the same auidence, it was hard enough in the USA let alone in NZ which only has 4.5 million people, so from day one of there being two V8 touring car series in the country there were calls for some form of unification, there were just a lot of egos and money involved which made it difficult to get to the point we are at today which I wouldn't say is a positive one.

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

I still don't understand why racing in NZ and Australia seems to be a winter pursuit where everywhere else it starts in spring and is wrapped up by winter.

Would be cool from a European point of view if both countries main Motorsport series were starting about now to give us something to watch.

I know there's that Toyota open wheel series but I need more dammit!

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Well generally the main stuff was always over the summer, it's just been recently with the Super Tourers that stuff has gone funny, and I suppose Australia can get away with racing over the winter as they can go and visit places like Darwin and Townsville which are basically in the tropics.

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

Wow. So almost the exact same thing in NZ as in Sweden in 2012. All the way across the world, politics and egos reign, and history repeats itself.

Snow.

Or the lack of it.

I don't think there is a single race track in Australia where it snows every year, and where I live (Brisbane) it has never properly snowed. Ever. This year it got down to 3 degrees overnight one day in winter, and that was the coldest day in a century here.

The coldest capital city in Australia, Canberra, has about the same average high temperature in the middle of winter as London does in March.

Funnily enough, probably the most snow-prone track in Australia is Bathurst, being on a mountain in an inland area that isn't a desert.

Also Darwin and Townsville barely ever drop below 20 degrees in winter, and in summer they tend to get hit by tropical cyclones at least once a year. Racing there in the summer is just not a viable option.

stream for race #2 of the Rush Security Waikato 250, under safety car as about a 1/3 of the field crashed. raining too

GP2 racer Mitch Evans took part in that round as a one off, he got some pretty decent results!

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

This series is heading to its grave:
http://www.speedcafe.com/2015/02/19/nz-supertourers-cancels-timaru-ruapuna-rounds/

The Kiwi racing scene is really in the shit at the moment.

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Check out the Touring Car Driver Database! (if you'd be so kind)
Motorsport playlists on YouTube

Yep. This happens every so often; people disagree with the way a series is being run, they branch off and start their own series, the country isn't big enough to support both, and one (or both) shuts down.

Give it a year or so and things will be good again.

Personally I think they should go to MARC cars.

Apart from the TRS series, but that's only 5 weeks a year

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

V8 SuperTourers to merge with NZ V8 Touring Cars
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/motorsport ... t-to-merge

Good.


Entry list here:
http://www.speedcafe.com/2015/04/09/healthy-field-set-for-nzv8-supertourer-merger/

It needed to happen, really. NZ is far too small of a country to sustain two of the same sort of championship.

_________________
Check out the Touring Car Driver Database! (if you'd be so kind)
Motorsport playlists on YouTube

It's a bit late, but whatever.

http://www.speedcafe.com/2015/04/13/bargwanna-evans-clinch-nz-touring-car-titles/