NZ FORMULA 5000 ASSOCIATION
Press release
For immediate release
* 2017/18 SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series
Rnd 1 ITM SuperSprint meeting
Virgin Australia Supercars championship NZ round
Pukekohe
Fri-Sun
Nov 03-05
2017
SERIES PREVIEW #2
31-10-17
SMITH ‘RARING TO GO’ AS F5000 SERIES RETURNS TO PUKEKOHE
The Pukekohe motor racing circuit has always held a special place in the heart of evergreen Kiwi racing great Ken Smith.
So when the organisers of the New Zealand round of the Virgin Australia Supercars championship invited the NZ Formula
5000 Association to run the opening round of this season’s SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series at this
weekend’s ITM SuperSprint meeting the 75-year-old three-time New Zealand Grand Prix winner was the first to confirm his
entry.
“Wild horses wouldn’t have been able to keep me away,” Smith, awarded an MBE in 1987 for ‘services to New Zealand
motorsport’, said this week.
Though he did not contest the very first NZ Grand Prix at the track in January 1963 he was there supporting his father
Morrie in 1964 and finished 12th in his New Zealand Grand Prix debut in 1965.
Since then he has – through dint of an unbroken career which this weekend sees the supercharged septuagenarian enter his
60th consecutive season of national level competition – without a doubt completed more laps of the iconic Pukekohe
circuit than any other driver.
““I know it’s different now with all the concrete and the new section down the back (straight), but it’s still Pukekohe
to me. There’s just something special about the place. There’s the history, obviously, but there’s something else as
well, something that keeps you wanting to go back,” he said
Smith joined the MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series in 2007 and has since won the MSC title four times. For the
first five years he drove a Lola T430, but for the past five he has raced a Lola T332 which he co-owns with career-long
crew members Barry Miller and Phil Richardson.
Though not the same car he used to win the 1976 New Zealand Grand Prix at Pukekohe (that car still exists and is in
active use by Australian driver Andrew Robson) the ‘new’ car has been re-sprayed the same bright red and carries the
same La Valise Travel, K-Road signage as the original did 41 years ago.
Though he says he won’t know how ‘quick’ the track will be this weekend until he puts some laps in on Friday, Smith
believes that, with the changes to the track to accommodate the Aussie Supercars, the quickest possible time could be
very similar to the one compatriot Graeme Lawrence set when the front and back straight chicanes were in use in 1976.
With its new right-left-right complex of corners on the back straight, and the tighter confines of the now concrete
barrier-lined corner entering the start-finish straight the track will certain not be as quick as it was when the MSC NZ
F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series had a round there in 2008.
That year Auckland driver Roger Williams (Lola T332) gave an indication of just how fast a Formula 5000 single-seater
could lap the fast, flowing circuit by easily bettering the track’s original category lap record (the 56.7 seconds set
in the 1971 NZ Grand Prix meeting at Pukekohe by race runner-up, Australian Frank Matich) in qualifying with a best lap
time of 55.35 seconds, then got very close to Ken Smith’s contemporary best in an F5000 car (55.20 set in a Matich A50
in 1993) in the first race, his quickest lap a 55.80.
He and McRae GM1 driver Chris Hyde then went quicker again the day after, Williams setting a best lap of 54.59, Hyde
54.73, both in the second race.
These times compare favourably with those of the V8 Supercars at the time with Ford driver Mark Winterbottom the last to
claim pole position at the track (in 2007 before the ill-fated move to the Hamilton street circuit) with a time of
55.6704 and a typical race lap being in the mid 56s.
However, ultimate times, says Smith, are only part of the ageless appeal of the stock-blook 5-litre V8 single-seater
F5000 category and the cars built for it.
‘There’s just something about them and you see it wherever we go. People like the speed, obviously, how fast they go.
But I think they also like the fact that they’ve got V8s in them, and that unlike a lot of these modern cars the
difference still comes down to the driver.”
Had the annual V8 Supercar round not returned to Pukekohe Smith agrees that the future of the venue would have been
shaky at best. So he is pleased the necessary funding has been found to upgrade the track.
“Old tracks are like old buildings, ” he says, “we’ve lost so many, Bay Park, Wigram, Waimate, we don’t want to lose any
more.”
This weekend Smith will be one of 17 drivers to line up for practice, qualifying and first three races of the 2017/18
SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series at the ITM SuperSprint meeting.
Joining Smith and his Lola T332 on the grid will be a mix of quick series regulars like defending SAS Autoparts MSC
series champion Brett Willis (Lola T330) from Rotorua, Glenn Richards (Lola T400), and Clark Proctor (March 73A1) from
Auckland, Tony Roberts (McLaren M10A) from Napier, and more recent arrivals Grant Martin (Talon MR1) and Frank Karl
(McLaren M10B) both from Auckland, Karl Zohs (Chevron B32) from Rotorua and David Arrowsmith (Lotus 70B) from
Christchurch.
The round also sees the arrival of a second father-and-son pair in David and Codie Banks. It was the first family
pairing of Peter (McRae GM1) and Aaron (Talon MR1A) Burson who introduced David Banks (the man behind series sponsor SAS
Autoparts) to the series so it is particularly appropriate that with David debuting a new car (the ex Peter Sundberg
Lola T332) this weekend, his son Codie steps up from the Historic Formual Ford class to the SAS Autoparts MSC F5000 one
in his father’s original series car, a Talon MR1.
Returning, meanwhile, after a couple of years racing in other classic categories, is 2013/14 series title holder Andy
Higgins, this time in a Lola T332. And set to make their local debut in the series are two young drivers, Ken Smith
protégé Tom Alexander, and former karting colleague Michael Collins,
Alexander drove UK-based SAS Autoparts MSC series regular Greg Thornton’s Chevron B32 at Phillip Island in Australia 18
months ago and this weekend is deputising for car owner Ian Riley (who can’t make the meeting) in the Lola T332
maintained by Smith and Ken Smith Motorsport crew chief Barry Miller.
Collins will drive a McRae GM1 run by Christchurch preparation specialists Motorsport Solutions.
No F5000 event here in New Zealand would be complete, finally, without a New Zealand-built Begg, with the honour for
running one of these justifiably famous Drummond (near Invercargill) built cars going to Kerry McIntosh and his FM2
model.
The SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series single seaters will be on track fromFriday with practice in the
morning and a qualifying session in the afternoon. There are then three races scheduled, the first 12 lapper on Saturday
at 1.20pm, a second 12 lap one on Sunday morning at10.05am and a 14 lap final on Sunday afternoon at 2.25pm.
The 2017/18 SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series is organised and run with the support of sponsors SAS
Autoparts, MSC, NZ Express Transport, Bonney's Specialised Bulk Transport, Mobil Lubricants, Pacifica, Avon Tyres,
Webdesign and Exide Batteries.
You can follow the 2017/18 series on Facebook at F5000 New Zealand or on the NZ F5000 Association's website www.F5000.co.nz
Ends
CALENDAR
2017/18 SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series
Rnd 1 - Nov 03-05 2017 – ITM Auckland SuperSprint Supercar event Pukekohe, NZ
Rnd 2 - Nov 10-12 2017 – The Sound MG Classic meeting Circuit Chris Amon Manfeild Feilding NZ
Rnd 3 - Jan 19-21 2018 - Historic Grand Prix meeting, Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park Taupo NZ
Rnd 4 - Jan 26-28 2018 - HRC/TRS meeting Hampton Downs Nth Waikato, NZ
Rnd 5 - Feb 02-04 2018 – Skope Classic Mike Pero Motorsport Park Ruapuna Christchurch, NZ
Rnd 6 - March 16-18 2018 - VHRR Phillip Island Classic Phillip Island VIC Australia