North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Teen driver takes on next challenge
Teenager Brock Gilchrist has had limited experience driving a car but he is already racing against the country’s best young up-andcoming drivers.
Gilchrist, 14, has joined the Toyota 86 Championship for the final two rounds of New Zealand’s leading single make championship for sports coupe cars.
Born to a father with a passion for racing and named after a legend of Australian motorsport, Gilchrist seemed destined to be behind the wheel from a young age.
‘‘Brock was named after Peter Brock. The name chosen by his Dad before we even knew the sex of the baby,’’ Gilchrist’s Mum Ursula explains.
Luckily for dad Brent, his boy loves the sport as much as he does.
Brent had Gilchrist driving a battery-powered Ford Bronco at just 2 years of age, racing quad bikes by age 4 and karting at age 7.
‘‘As a mother, it’s not easy to see your 7-year-old driving at 80kmh in a kart … I have a lot of confidence in his ability these days, but the nerves are still there,’’ Ursula said.
Gilchrist has risen out of karting into the popular BMW E30 series and now the Toyota 86 Championship.
He has completed round 5 at Manfield over the weekend and heads into the final round at Hampton Downs in March. Brent said the plan is to put together a programme to allow Gilchrist to
‘‘I have a lot of confidence in his ability these days, but the nerves are still there’’
Ursula Gilchrist
compete in the full Toyota 86 Championship season next year.
‘‘Racing isn’t like other sports, when you discover your child is good, really good, you need to put it all on the line,’’ Ursula said.
‘‘The sport of racing requires a huge family sacrifice, part of this is financial, the other is time. We pride ourselves as travelling as a family to most of Brock’s races.’’
A hot lap with Kiwi driver Shane van Gisbergen when he was 11 years old convinced Gilchrist his future lay in the Australian Supercar Championship.
Like his Westlake Boys High School peers, Gilchrist is still two years away from being able to sit his road driver’s licence. But his ambitions might be slightly different - by the time he is leaving school, he wants to have improved his public speaking and be on the way to racing a V8 supercar.