Beeby brothers build their racing fun machine
Timaru’s Beeby brothers are having a lot of family fun racing a vehicle they welded together from two separate car halves.
Murray and Karl Beeby may not be at the front of their races but they are loving their time behind the wheel of the Nissan Skyline R32 GTR that they built over an 18-month period.
The brothers were in action on Saturday in round three of the South Island One-Hour Endurance Championship at the Timaru International Raceway and although losing the lead in their class, they believe they can still win it in the final round at Ruapuna on November 2.
‘‘When we started building the car, it was literally two halves of different cars that we welded together,’’ Murray, a project manager with Paul Smith Contracting, said. ‘‘It took us a year and a half to build it and this is our third year of racing it. It is really just starting to come into its own as we have slowly ironed out the problems.’’
Murray has raced different vehicles for the past 20 years while Karl is a relative rookie to the sport.
While they share the driving, the rest of the family are also involved in some aspects and all travel to the race meetings.
‘‘We are not a 2-3 person setup,’’ Murray said. ‘‘Mum and Dad are also a part. Saturday was the first day my son Jack, 14, was in the pit crew and he was in charge of all the belt changes and did a great job.’’ On Saturday, the Beebys finished 16th overall in the 35-strong field and second in their class.
‘‘We were probably further down than we had been expecting. The car was fast but everybody was fast it seems.
‘‘We seemed to be battling a McLaren for 15th throughout.
‘‘When you are doing that in this sort of racing it just makes it a bit more spectacular.’’
Murray said that while losing the class lead, they were looking forward to Ruapuna which was an exciting track and one that suited the car which he believes passes 200kmh down the back straight at Levels.
Another Timaru pairing looking to get the job done at Ruapuna will be Chris and Johnny Small who finished second overall to extend their championship lead.
The Smalls, driving their Porsche 997 GT3 Cup, had a great battle with Marco Schelp (Porsche Cup S) with just four seconds separating them as 55 laps were completed.
Schelp’s car had extra pace but the Smalls kept the lead to about seven seconds before jumping into the lead with a quick pitstop with about 15 minutes to go.
Schelp was, however, able to run them down a few laps later.
The closest competitors to the Smalls for overall honours before the weekend’s racing, all finished behind them with Jarod Owens third and Martin Dippie fourth as Porsches took out nine of the top 10 placings.
In the three-hour event that followed, the podium was swept by Audi R8s, with N Foster and J Reid winning by a minute over a D Chapman/M Doran/A waite entry with a B Byers/C Orr-West car in third as they completed 168 laps. The Foster/Reid car also had the fastest lap of 59.0222 seconds.