DIRT NATION

This month, as we dare to believe we are emerging from beneath the Covid-19 cloud that has loomed over New Zealand and the world for the past nine months we might pause to think about what shape the sport is in, and where we want to take it?

Off-road racing is coming back. It isn’t ‘resurging’ like MotorSport New Zealand events, but then it hasn’t had the benefit of the active financial support MSNZ has provided to its clubs. Instead, the return is coming on a gradual basis at club level. Standalone races and regional club series are teasing reluctant racers out of the garage and onto the dirt.

It’s also family-based. People like Tuakau’s Bishop family with Dad Leigh stepping out of his UTV and into a V8 truck (# 836) and the next generation represented by hot-shoe son Matthew who’s come up through the Kiwitruck youth category and is now racing a class 7 (#736). All this racing is enthusiastically supported by Mum Michele and lacking only daughter Gemma. She’s in the equestrian scene and is limited to one horse power.

Over the years the top truck class and the top race car class have ramped up the pace significantly and it’s possible to see anything up to a million dollars’ worth of these cars and trucks gridding up to race.

These ‘star’ classes draw in the crowds. They deserve to run in events that are set up for spectators. Farm and forest courses are fine, endurance racing has its place, but a big crowd adds ‘sizzle’ to an event and it’s a great way to get new people into racing. That means we need stadium-style racing. What we call ‘short course’ tracks close to population centres. It’s not easy finding such tracks or places we can set them up.

That’s why what’s happening in February and March in Aucklandis a ‘must see’ and ‘must do’.

Right on the doorstep of the biggest urban population in the country, and with two whole hours of free-to-air TV, the 2021 Mickey Thompson New Zealand Stadium Offroad Championship is the first national title of the year and the first to run on an all-new, terraformed track at the ‘Queen City’s new ‘home’ of motorsport, Collin Dale Park, right slap-bang beside the city’s international airport.

Success breeds success – and never more so than in the modified UTV class of offroad racing.

So what’s in a name? What’s a four-wheel-drive, and what’s not? The new event is switching from ‘letter’ naming that has meaning for a handful of people outside the class to the more evocative Yamaha Ultra4 (U class) and Polaris Turbo4 (S class, referring to the modifications permitted). CanAm missed the sponsor train apparently.

Time for some recent history. We have gathered rally drivers, The family that plays together... four wheel drive types, hillclimb specialists, drifters, circuit racers, Targa rallymen, first timers to the sport solely because of the UTVs.

But no class of racing is truly established until it is supported by the local tuning industry. The UTVs have come a long way in a very short time, thanks in large part to the year-on-year evolutionary tuning carried out by people like E&H Motors of Pukekohe, longtime tuners of everything with wheels and arguably the local mecca of UTV go-fast innovation; and Neville ‘Max’ Smith at Cougar Race Cars, builders of components and stunning race frames for the UTV classes.

There’s a nice little industry clustering behind these machines, and it’s worth taking a moment to consider what they have brought to the sport in terms of excitement and also of fresh blood.

While Polaris dominated everything – and had their name on every event they could – in the early years, the playing field is now much more level, and a little Darwinist theory has been applied to the range of brands and models taking people to the podium.

Early on we had Polaris, the first Can Ams and a couple of

Arctic Cat UTVs. It didn’t take long for a bit of an arms race to develop, and Arctic Cat dropped away, leaving Can Am to challenge the might of the Polaris teams. The advent of the 1000cc Polaris made that job harder, but Can Am stayed in the hunt, with southern dealers especially keen.

Polaris stepped ahead – slightly – with the new 1000 RZR, its single-seater driving position addressing an inbuilt weight distribution issue that affects all the two seaters. Dyson Delahunty and Dion Edgecombe are the leading racers using the ‘single’.

The arrival of Yamaha was keenly anticipated – a ‘proper’ gearbox and Yamaha’s massive engine design and tuning knowledge brought a new edge to competition and brought the championship back to an even keel with three brands all able to take wins.

These companies – Yamaha, Polaris and CanAm – are major players in their respective markets. There’s now a hint that Honda is aware of what it is missing out on (sales and profile). Robbie Gordon is also building his own-brand ‘side by side’ – available by searching online: speedsxs.com.

To which all I can say before signing off this month is ‘stay safe’ and ‘bring it on!’ If we can get on – and stay on – top of the whole Covid-19/Coronavirus pandemic thing we’re going to be in for one hell of an exciting 2021.