TAUPŌ HISTORIC GP
SSTEVE RITCHIE
uper Sprint Motorsport hosted the annual Historic GP at Taupō’s International Motorsport Park over the weekend of the 19th to 21st of January. This year the event celebrated Holden, while the main drawcard was the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship of which this was the first of the five-round series. Other classes racing were the Holden All-Comers, Historic Touring Cars, Historic Saloons, Sports and GTs, Formula 5000, Formula Open NZ, and the Formula Junior/ F3 /Historic Formula Ford. The weekend was held under mostly fine and very hot conditions although rain did make its way onto the track at times.
Friday’s schedule had all the classes partaking in practice laps. A majority of qualifying took place on Saturday morning before racing started with the Historic Saloons, Sports & GT. David Hooper in a ‘69 Chevy Camaro just held off Todd Mexted for the win. Race 2 was a handicap race based on the results from the previous race which meant Hooper was to start last. By the end of the 7 laps he made it as far as eighth place, with John McKechnie to win. Their final race was won by Tony Mexted in a Mustang. This was the first time in three years that Mexted had driven the Mustang.
The series had gone all out to attract the best cars over the ditch for the demonstration runs. These included Shane Van Gisbergen’s Bathurst-winning Camaro from last year, driven by special guest Craig Lowndes, and he didn’t hold back in the mini demonstration races that they held. He was up against Greg Murphy in a 2003 Bathurst 24 Hour-winning Monaro and Steve Richards who was driving a 2003 Perkins VY Commodore (PE 041). Jack Perkins was driving his father’s 1993 Bathurst-winning Perkins Commodore and Harri Jones driving a 2007 HRT VE Commodore – the first VE to win a V8 Supercar race. The organisers rounded up all the display and demo cars on the track for a spectacular lunchtime photo shoot.
The Historic Touring Cars also featured Stephen Richards and Greg Murphy. For this Murphy was driving a Zakspeed Ford Escort, the last of its kind in the world. Its claim to fame was winning the 1975 DRM Championship at the hands of Hans Heyer. He had an average time in the car with it having intermittent issues throughout the weekend. Richards’ weekend was much better although he did encounter one DNF in the GTS-R Skyline which father Jim Richards drove successfully in the first part of 1990 before switching to the newer model, winning the Australian Touring Car Championship of that year. He spent a lot of
the laps dicing with Andy Greenslade who was in the famous B&H Sierra Cosworth. This was the last of the five Longhurst Team Sierras and was the only one to be fully built in Australia with the sole purpose to win Bathurst. Greenslade won three of the four races.
10 cars were entered for the F5000 Tasman Cup Revival series race, round 2 of the four-round series. Tony Roberts in the McLaren was an unfortunate non-starter having blown the engine just three laps into the first practice. It was Stephen Ross in the 1973 McRae GM1 who outshone all the other drivers winning all three races to take the maximum points from the weekend.
Considered by some as a stepping stone to the big league, which is Formula 1, the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship attracts young drivers from across the globe, in part because the northern hemisphere is in winter but also because it can be so tightly contested. Taupō was the opening round for the 17 drivers.
Race one saw Polish driver Roman
Bilinski start off from pole and lead the whole 19 laps. Kiwi driver Kaleb Ngatoa started from seventh place and by lap five had moved up to fourth which is where he stayed. Liam Sceats, another Kiwi had a starting position of third however fell back to fifth. Race two had our own Alex Crosbie start from pole and lead most of the laps. The safety car made a couple of appearances which kept the field tight. Ngatoa was one of the unfortunate casualties. The last few laps were anyone’s to win or lose. Bilinski worked his way up to second place while Crosbie fell to third. Chinese driver Gerrard Xie won race two.
The final race of the weekend was a 23-lap feature race. Liam Sceats had a stellar qualifying earlier in the day to secure pole. He had a good start and led until lap 6 where he was overtaken by Christian Mansell before being passed by Bilinski. He remained in third place until the chequered flag. The Polish driver then passed Mansell on lap 20 to win the race and the weekend. He also took away the Denny Hulme Trophy.