Photo: Damon TemplemanThe fastest car in New Zealand, rare American and Australian muscle cars, the bikes of the Patriots Defence Force Motorcycle Club, motocross racers and breathtaking modified four cylinder and rotary powered performance cars are on show at the 2011 Full Throttle Festival.
Full Throttle is Auckland’s free Labour Weekend festival of wheels, the biggest and most popular festival of its type. Over all three days of Labour Weekend at Manukau’s TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre, the festival will feature an exciting three day free programme of car shows, displays, demonstrations and action ranging from drift cars to competition karts and V8 Rod and Custom cars.
The first day is based around the popular V 4 and Rotary Supershow, with a show and shine display inside the TelstraClear building and drift action in the tarmac zone set up in the main car park beside the building. Also featuring is the Indigenous Ink tattoo exhibition.
The second day is In Gear Sunday, a chance for the many car clubs of the region to put their best vehicles on show. Leading car clubs already confirmed are the Mustang Car Club, MG Car Club and the Vauxhall Opel Sport car club.
The clubs will be joined by an on-track demonstration from the karting fraternity, the “incubator” of every recent Kiwi racer who has gone on to prominence on four wheels. Kartsport NZ will have a static display for the whole three days with have information available for people who are interested in the sport. MG Car Club members will also stage a gymkhana in the same area during the day.
In Gear Sunday is also finals day for the Rugby World Cup, and the site will feature family-oriented rugby activities inside TelstraClear Pacific Event Centre on the day, with a free live screening of the final match that evening and the second day of the Indigenous Ink tattoo exhibition. Junior, the Heart of the Nation festival’s Biggest Fan, is a five metre marionette he will finish out the day with a walk-about session in the tarmac action zone.
Full Throttle goes loud for the final day, Labour Monday, with a full day of V8 Rod and Custom action in the tarmac zone, where Manukau Rod and Custom Club will run a tarmac streetkarna. The action on this day is open to rod and custom car owners from clubs across the region and is a sure crowd pleaser as drivers put their V8-engined cars through their paces.
Inside the TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre the final day features the Mothers Hot Rod & Custom Car Show presented by Manukau Rod & Custom Club - a rod and custom car “show and shine” display. Also on display will be drag racing cars and bikes including Anthony Marsh’s dragster, the fastest car in New Zealand.
Motorcycles are big at Full Throttle this year. A major drawcard across the Saturday and Sunday is Manukau MX 2011, a motocross race event that attracts hundreds of riders to race across the venue’s low grassy hills, racing in an urban environment unlike any other in their race calendar. The Patriots Defence Force MC will have their bikes on show, along with speedway and fast road machines and a unique one-wheeled motorcycle built by an east Auckland man.
Fans of military vehicles will have their share of excitement on the Saturday of Full Throttle. The New Zealand Army will have a Unimog on site, offering rides to festival fans; on the same day the Military Vehicle Collectors Club will display a wide range of Jeeps, trucks, armoured cars and more, many of them having seen service in WW2. Military re-enactors will have static displays in a marquee and there will be battle displays using the military vehicles. There will be opportunities to ride in military vehicles during the day in exchange for a gold coin donation. An Army information display will also be a feature of the military area, based in a recruitment bus parked alongside the static displays area.
Throughout the weekend, the ATV (quad) racers of Auckland ATV Club will have race sessions along with static displays and races for the new KiwiTruck junior offroad race category. The four wheel drive and offroad racing set will also be in show with static displays of race cars and sprint action on the Monday.
Among the fullsize offroad race and four wheel drive vehicles is the new Cooper Tyres Nissan Pathfinder V6 of Jared McGillivray and a new American race truck being prepared for its competition debut by Kevin Hall. Tony McCall’s new BSL Terra Chev is being rebuilt after its troubled Taupo debut and is expected to be on static display all three days, taking to the grassed race track on the Monday.
Full Throttle organisers say owners of club, competition, 4WD, V8 and other suitable vehicles including modified motorcycles (“choppers”) and fast road and race bikes who would like to join the Full Throttle Festival and put their vehicles on display or be part of the action each day can contact Mark Baker on (09) 296 8636, 021 2120607 or veritas.nz@xtra.co.nz
The 2011 Full Throttle Festival is an Auckland Council event and is part of the 2011 REAL New Zealand Festival.
