Photo: Mike Limbrick's Mk10 Mallock built in NZ during the early 1990 sOne could argue that the ‘heyday’ of sports car racing in New Zealand was in the 1960-70s. Now we are seeing something of a renaissance in sports car racing which has emerged over the past two years.
Since the inception of the Independent Race Classes (IRC) meetings two years ago and despite the current financial situation there has beena minimum field of fifteen cars face the starter at all rounds during the 2010/11 season.
There is a diverse field of cars covering four classes competing for both class and overall championship points
The four classes are as follows
1 & 2 - Clubman class up to 2 litres and over 2 litres
Clubman cars are derived from road going sports cars and although they do not need to be road registered they must carry headlights and run on dot rated tyres (Dot rated are road legal race tyres that are available in differant compounds and are generally softer and wear out a lot quicker than normal road tyres) and can only carry wings if they come out with them as standard equipment
3 - Prosport
Prosport are dedicated Sports Racing cars up to 2 litres normally aspirated engines, wings and slick tyres Basically everything else is free although the driver must sit to one side of the centre line of the car, i.e. no centre cockpit cars are allowed
4 - Supersport
Supersport is basically for any sports car which does not fit into any of the previous classes. This includes both supercharged and turbo charged cars.
This year the program of events is for six rounds of the IRC meetings and two Historic race meetings run by the Historic Racing Club.
At the time of writing after five rounds of the series the overall leader and leader of the Prosport class is John Mines from Wellington running his own designed and built Hyabusa powered JRM special .
Second overall and second in Prosport class is Todd Sherley of Hamilton who campaigns the Jamie Aislabie owned concept which runs a Toyota 3sge engine.
Third overall and leading Supersport is Mark Galvin also from Wellington in his own designed and built Terra FX. This car draws a crowd wherever it goes as it is unique in both concept and look and is powered by a turbo charged Hyabusa
Other class leaders are:
- Clubman under 2 litre Craig Alexander from Auckland in his 3sge powered Fraser.
- Clubman over 2 litre Huw Allen from Fielding in his turbo Subaru powered Saker.
All these cars will be competing at the Hampton downs circuit on both the 5/6 of March IRC meeting and the 19/20 March HRC meeting.
