ONLY HALFWAY FREE
Uncertainty is something that does not sit well with me, so the very fact that each and every one of us has been suspended in a state of uncertainty for the past few months, not really knowing which way is up and which way is down, has been a horrible ride. I’ve spoken about the more serious sides of this in previous editorials, and, thankfully, as we slide on down into Level 1, a lot of this uncertainty has been alleviated and we can all begin to get back to whatever we deemed normal life to be.
However, the reality is that that’s just not the case for car people. Yes, we can now all get back together at the track and smash some tyres; bounce off some ripple strips; or roll up to a car park meet, pop that bonnet, and shine baby shine! But we’ve now lost pump E85 only partly due to Covid-19 and more to do with climate change, so we either have to retune or get a barrel of E100 and mix our own. Easier said than done, as the worldwide demand for hand sanitizer is draining ethanol supplies and has us all running around as if it’s the Prohibition era and we’re looking for hooch.
While I highly recommend you do travel New Zealand and see this great country of ours, the car community is an international one. Planning a trip to the World Time Attack Challenge (WTAC)? Canned! Jambo? Canned! Goodwood Festival of Speed? Canned! A trip to Ebisu in Japan or the Japanese Classic Car Show (JCCS) in the States? Good luck getting past the border or even getting a flight there in the first place. In fact, most countries will not welcome you with open arms, and, even if they do, a two-week iso. session will be the first activity on your agenda, followed by the same thing on your return to New Zealand.
Sightseeing trips are one thing, but spare a thought for all those who earn a crust either driving or spinning spanners on race cars. All the travel restrictions and event cancellations have meant that cars have circled the globe alone only to return with all the fuel and tyres they left with. This is something that will continue to have effects well into 2021, and some of the bigger events may never recover from losing all the internationals that supported them.
The flip side is the internationals wanting to come here — the hundreds of drifters who come here each year to learn, the stars who compete in D1NZ, the big-name dirt racers who compete in the likes of international midget and sprint car series over summer, the list goes on and on. We’ve also lost the World Rally Championship (WRC) (again) — although, as we go to print, Rally New Zealand has announced a locals-only event, making use of some of the stages earmarked for the canned WRC event.
So, it looks as if it’s going to be a locals-only motorsport season coming up — that is, if we can even muster decent-sized grids. With everyone’s income taking a large hit, you know the first thing to go is race car money. This extends to sponsorship; you can’t very well be laying off staff and then throwing cash at a race car, can you?
Shit, I didn’t mean for this to turn out so doom and gloom, and it should not be. There are at least a few positives we can take away from this. Some events will now have more of the big local name drivers in attendance — those not able to travel are more likely to support local events, giving us bigger crowds — and if a trans-Tasman bubble happens before both countries open to the rest of the world, we could very well see an influx of those drivers wanting to get off the red dust and partake in some octane-fuel wanderlust.
So all I can say is: hold tight; those big steel birds will return one day to whisk you away. In the meantime, we have some great grassroots motorsport here in New Zealand. Perhaps it’s the perfect opportunity to tow your race car to the other island — whichever that is — as that’s one border that I know will welcome you with open arms.