Motor sport
As a story it has all the hallmarks of the sort of fantasy beloved of film directors; complete with reclusive multi-millionaire and his grandiose plan to build the world’s fastest track-day car from a state-of-the-art workshop and test track in a remote area of New Zealand’s South Island.
I know, when I first heard about Australian multi-millionaire David Dicker and his plan to build a car called a Rodin FZero at Waiau in North Canterbury I thought the guy who told me was (to quote my dear old long departed Grandad) ‘pulling my leg.’
“Google it, if you don’t believe me,” he said. “The track’s on Google Maps.”
Which indeed it is, nestled in an otherwise undistinguished parcel of land alongside Inland Rd (aka The Inland Kaikoura Route) a few kms northeast of Waiau, a small rural service town between Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura.
Dicker, from Sydney, is the CEO and chairman of Dicker Data, a company he founded back in 1978 to distribute computers.
Since then the company has grown and prospered, listing on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) in 2011, and generating revenues last year (2019) of close to two billion NZ dollars for an after-tax profit of $57.87 million.
For a while there too, DIcker was happy that only a few key people were party to his plans. But since acquiring the Lotus company’s still-born ‘F1-car-you-can-own’ T125 project four years ago he has acquired a UK-based publicist and started accepting interview requests to ‘sell the dream’ of the futuristic FZero model which he hopes to sell to ‘high-net-worth individuals’ (like himself) for something in the region of $1.9 million (each!).
As part of his stated goal of building as much of each car-including the F1-style single-seater FZed and full-body (complete with jet fighter-like canopy) FZero at his Waiau ‘factory’ Dicker has created a purpose-built, multi-option test track on the property.
The complex actually consists two main tracks with a combined length of 4,788 metres and 19 turns alongside a 30m radius skid-pad (Track One) for steady state handling development
Track Two is an undulating 2,350m 12-turn circuit of dips, blind crests and varying cambers which has now been widened to 10m to allow for a better driver experience. Track Three, meanwhile, is the fast, flat and deceptively challenging seventurn 2,438m circuit on what would once have been called the ‘home’ or ‘front’ paddock (which runs alongside Inland Road) which has a 900m straight upon which the Rodin FZed has achieved speeds approaching 300km/h.
Alongside the widening of the lower part of the track, plus the addition of a new high-speed left-hand corner similar to Suzuka’s famous 130R corner on Track Three contractors JCL Asphalt, Cirtex Industries, and BG Cooke Construction have resealed both with a bespoke mix of imported asphalt to make it as smooth and resistant to cracking or base movement as possible.
As well as development work on the cars, the tracks and adjacent customer experience centre will be used by the Rodin team to fine-tune each car along with detailed performance data to help their new owner/drivers get ‘up-to-speed’ before they ship their new FZed or FZero home..
If this sounds like a bit of you more information about the cars and the man and team behind them can be found on the Rodin website at https://rodincars.com/