‘Fresh Faces In The Firing Line As NaZCAR Pro Series Heads To Taupo For Second ’23 Season Round

There will be some fresh faces in the firing line tomorrow (Saturday July 29) as Auckland-based novelty motor event and series organizer Dr Jacob Simonsen takes his new 3-Hr and 6-Hr Pro Endurance Championship Series to the Taupo International Motorsport Park for a second time this Saturday.

Last year the inaugural NZ Pro Endurance Championship title-qualifying 3-Hr & 6-Hr races at Taupo were both won by the Team Mag Motorsport E36 BMW 325i coupe of Garry Cammock and Michael Jane, from (in the 3 Hr race) the broadly similar BMW 325i coupe of West Auckland mates, Karl Gaines and Lance Gerlach of Team Stickman Racing, and (the 6-Hr), the BMW E36 Compact of the Team Super Mates Racing young guns, Reece Hendl-Cox, Lee Zeltwanger and Cullern Thorby.

With only Karl Gaines and Lance Gerlach of Team Stickman Racing the only one of the three pairings to return and contest the opening round of the 2023 series, favourite status for this Saturday’s second round has to go to the ‘first-past-the-post’ winners of both the 3-Hr and the 6-Hr races at Hampton Downs, the E36 BMW four-door of Team Get In Behind’s Allan and Colin Letcher and Tony Rutz, who literally didn’t put a foot wrong in spite of the inclement conditions they faced on the day.

In .terms of the Index of Efficiency competition, meanwhile, it’s hard to look past Team Assassin and their ‘little car that could,’ the late-ish model, Mazda 3. Last year car owner Mal Chamberlain and co-driving father-and-son David and Nathan Cox, made short work of the competition, claiming category honours five out of six times to earn one of the six NZ Endurance Championship titles.

This season has also got off to a similarly’ bullish start, with Chamberlain, David, Cox, and new third man, Phil Dravitski claiming ultimate IoE honours in the first 3-Hr race of the new season and finishing the closest possible second behind the Nissan Primera of father and son, Rodger, and Marcus Smith (Team Taking The P..s) in the 6-Hr.

“Heading to a new venue is always a fresh challenge as well as a great leveler, particularly when it’s a good three or four hours away – as Taupo is - for most of our (Auckland-based) series regulars, Dr Simonsen said last night.

Sorting out suitable time bands for each of the three classes the field is split into this year to allow Dr Simonsen to calculate the overall winner and placegetters in the Index of Efficiency award category took ‘a lot less time than last year, thank goodness!, with this year’s.

three Taupo bands starting at 1:41.000 –1:46.999 (Super-Pro) before heading down to the 1:47.00-1:54.999 of GT-Pro, then the 1:55.00 to 2:06.00 of the Sport-Pro category. There is also an immediate DQ zone of between 1:40.00 and 1: 40.999.

At the opening 2023 series round at Hampton Downs earlier this month, the DQ zone became something of a moot point, however, with heavy rain keeping the track surface streaming and the lap times well off what they might have been in the dry for at least 5 of the 6 hours the event was due to run.

At Taupo this weekend, however, the weather forecast is promising a fine, bluebird day all day for the greater Taupo region on race day (Saturday) meaning that some of the teams entered in the fastest Super-Pro class are going to have to be careful that in the heat of battle they don’t dip into the dreaded DQ zone.

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