ADDIS CHARGER

The late-November V8 Festival saw the welcome return to top-flight motorsport of one of the sport’s great racing icons, the legendary Addis Charger. The one-owner Addis Charger has been a race car all its life. It was brand new when entered into the Benson & Hedges (B&H) enduro by Todd Motors as one of a two-car team — this one being driven by Leo Leonard and Ernie Sprague, and the sister car being driven by Jim Richards and Rod Coppins. The Richards/Coppins car won the race; Leonard and Sprague were second, but gained the fastest lap. Graeme Addis bought the Leonard/Sprague car off Todd Motors and raced it in the Castrol GTX production series as well as in another B&H race, in which, driven by Addis and Noel Goodwin, it finished fourth.

Factory race cars, fast demos by Kiwi champs, and a full racing programme will be features of the 2016 Porsche Festival at Hampton Downs. To celebrate the success of Porsche’s successful return to endurance racing, the two Kiwis in the team, World Endurance champion Brendon Hartley and 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Earl Bamber, will attend the 2016 New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing, demonstrating two very special cars from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart — a 1977 Porsche 935 and a 1998 WSC LMP1 prototype. The festival is the country’s largest historic motorsport event, and the 2016 iteration will The car was retired from racing in 1974, then it sat in Addis’s workshop until 1976, when he rebuilt it as a sports sedan with a space- frame chassis; an extended wheelbase; and engine, suspension, brakes, and wheels from the Cal Rayborn Lola T190 Formula 5000, which Addis had purchased off Red Dawson. The motor was shifted back behind the driver’s seat. The five- litre motor was eventually replaced with a six- litre unit, but the car disappeared from the scene when Graeme got fed up with the politics, popped it into a container, welded up the container, and left it at the bottom of his garden for 20 years. The car — as original as the day it went into hibernation — will be at Hampton Downs for January’s two Porsche Festival meetings. take place at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park over two weekends in January — January 15 to 17 and 22 to 24. Stuttgart’s finest will be the stars of the show on both weekends. Also on the bill are Formula 5000, Historic Sports Sedans, Pre 65, Historic Muscle Cars, a Euro Enduro race, and a multitude of on- track Porsche activity — from racing to passenger rides and regularity trials. Porsche will have two further factory cars on display: a 918 Spyder — the latest Porsche supercar — and a full-sized model of the Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 race car.