The family that stays on track
NICK FISHER and his son Oliver might not have a Formula 1 budget but that hasn’t stopped them getting right into motor racing.
The pair have been taking their road cars to race in the Surgery Sprints series at Manfeild for more than a year. Nick races his wife Nicki Young’s 1995 BMW 328 while 19-year-old Oliver races a 1973 Alfa Romeo Berlina that he restored as a school project.
The BMW is returned to Nicki in time for her to drive it to her school teaching job on a Monday morning.
‘‘It feels a little bit different when I bring it back,’’ Nick admits.
‘‘The brakes are never quite the same,’’ Oliver says.
Nick has owned the Alfa for 25 years and used to race it on the Taupo circuit. At that stage it was painted green and nicknamed The Sprout.
The car had been parked outside in the back yard of the family’s Raumati property for years, with Nick, a mechanic and the former owner of the Alfa Romeo parts and service centre in Taupo, planning to restore it at some stage.
That was until last year, when Oliver, needing a practical project to submit in his final year at Raphael House School, hatched an ambitious plan to restore and race it.
At the time, ‘‘it was completely rusty, and it wasn’t going’’, he says.
The restoration cost about $5000 and took six months, with Oliver working on it after school and at weekends.
The body had more rust damage than the Fishers first thought, so the entire boot was replaced with steel cut from an old bonnet salvaged from the wrecker’s yard.
Oliver stripped out the interior to reduce weight, retaining only the original dashboard and centre console and removing the seats and carpet. The 2.0 litre engine has been left unmodified but the Fishers have lowered the suspension and tinkered with the tuning to improve the performance.
The Alfa wasn’t ready for Oliver to race before he had to finalise his school presentation so he took turns with Nick driving the BMW at his first ever race meeting. With no race tyres, Nick recalls they spent most of their time doing 360s on a wet slippery track.
Oliver says the BMW is far easier to drive on the track, with its more powerful engine, its automatic transmission and its ABS braking. But the factory leather seats make for some sliding around.
‘‘They are not really good for racing. You wind up sitting in the centre console or up against the window.’’
Nick admits he found it nerve wracking watching his son on his first outing on the circuit.
‘‘When we started racing the BMW watching Oliver at the hairpin, he would spin out. He usually managed to stay on the track though.’’
The pair now take both cars to race over the three kilometre course and have graduated to racing tyres.
While still on his restricted driver’s licence, Oliver has managed to beat his Dad’s best time in the BMW, clocking up a lap time of 1 minute 28 seconds to Nick’s 1 minute 32 seconds, with both getting up to 160 kilometres an hour by the end of the straights.
Nick says the sprint series offers an inexpensive and relatively safe introduction to motor racing, with scrutineers checking each car before the racing starts.
‘‘It is just racing against the clock in dual sprints, you don’t have to have a race car, just have Mum’s car.
‘‘Quite a few people just come in with their street cars. One of the slowest is the 1100cc Fiat Uno which Oliver’s friend (Scott Pearson) has. He will win his class even though he isn’t fast because he is the only one in it – he will win a prize.’’
To enter the sprints, cars must have a current warrant of fitness, a fitted fire extinguisher and drivers must wear cotton overalls and have a competition licence. The next round of the Surgery Sprints are on at Manfeild in Feilding on September 13. For more information go to: thesurgery.co.nz