Event still racing along
THE Waimate 50 Motorsport Festival will add another chapter to its storied history when it hits the streets of the South Canterbury town on October 20 and 21.
Since 2009 the event has gone from strength to strength.
The Waimate 50, a New Zealand Championship event, was first staged on January 31, 1959.
Waimate was considered the perfect place to host the event thanks to its wide streets and central location, while the event also had the backing of the council of the day.
Several thousand spectators lined the streets to take in the feature race — the Waimate 50 — which entailed 50 laps of a 1.3mile (2.09km) circuit that wound its way through the town’s central business district.
While several renowned drivers took part in the inaugural race, New Zealand’s bestknown driver not only took part, but took the chequered flag.
That driver was a young Bruce McLaren.
Even a rainstorm midway through the race couldn’t stop the fourtime Grand Prix winner and founder of the McLaren Racing Team from driving his No47 car to victory.
The event would continue for another seven years, before changes to safety regulations drastically changed the streetrace landscape.
The championship was moved to the newly constructed Levels Raceway near Timaru.
However, the crowds that came to Waimate didn’t buy into the event being held at Levels.
A street race did continue in Waimate for the next 25 years, but not as a championship event.
Waimate 50 Motorsport was founded in 1992, with a committee of 20 members, following a successful 25th anniversary Waimate 50 street race in 1991. An estimated 15,000 people attended the race and, after that, the committee decided to hold the race every second year.
The street racing continued successfully through the 1990s under the guidance of the Waimate 50 committee and supported by the Classic Motor Racing Club.
The final street race was staged in 1999, after membership had fallen, as the task of running a street race again became a bridge too far.
A small team stayed on to keep the name alive and worked on new strategies to bring back street racing to Waimate.
It took 10 years, but since 2009 the event has gone from strength to strength.
Over time, new races have been added, track layouts have been changed and drifting has been introduced over the past few years, which have all proved popular with the motorsport fans who line the town’s streets each year.