Top American Allard enters national Sprintcar champs
New Zealand Sprintcar drivers will have to be at the top of their game this weekend with highly-rated Californian driver Jonathan Allard confirming his entry for the 47th New Zealand Sprintcar Championship to be held at Ruapuna Speedway.
Allard is one of the most succesful Sprintcar racers in Northern California history having won the prestigious King of the West Series three times and he has won the Dirt Cup four times and in 2014 he won California’s biggest race ‘The Gold Cup’.
Allard is the defending New Zealand champion and despite having been a regular at Auckland’s Western Springs Speedway for the past seven years it will be just his second visit to Christchurch.
He last raced at Ruapuna in 2012 and mesmerised the big crowd with his slick passing manoeuvres through the traffic however his aspirations were extinguished when he crashed hard in his last heat race which damaged his car and ultimately caused engine issues during the final.
He had to bow to his fellow countryman Sammy Swindell who won the race.
While Allard has been in commanding form this summer on the northern tracks, former national champion Jamie McDonald will have plenty of support at the track that he considers to be his ’second home’.
"We love racing at Ruapuna. It’s a wide, fast track and always produces a great show.
‘‘We really look forward to our annual visit and have a lot of friends and supporters down here and feel that we couldn’t have prepared better," said McDonald who is not at all fazed by having to take on one of the USA’s top drivers.
"Jonathan is a great racer, but he’s not invincible.
‘‘I believe that our regular visits here (to Ruapuna) have given us a good clue as to how the South Island drivers will go. The gap between the Americans and the Auckland drivers has closed up but so too has the interisland gap.
‘‘The local boys are used to racing in big fields and they do the longer 25 lap races more regularly than they did in the past. We will have to fight for every point against them.’’
The event has attracted 35 entries including five past or present national champions.
Christchurch’s Jamie Duff is the only South Islander to have won the championship in the past 25 years.