Counties Manukau Offroad Racing Club

2017-polaris-title

– in association with HasTrak –

Spectacular crashes, wildlife incidents claim top contenders

Another new name for the sport’s oldest trophy

The ‘Morgan Express’ rolls through Woodhill

After 200 km with a misbehaving engine, John Morgan has won his first Woodhill 100, adding his name to the sport’s oldest Kiwi trophy and giving his Desert Dynamics Chev two-seater its first major title.

His epic run with a misfiring engine began from P5 on the grid and improved lap by lap as other unlimited-class racers fell by the wayside.
Whangarei’s Jardyne Lammers had taken pole and the early lead, but was one of the first casualties, dropping back as the first lap proceeded then plummeting off the leader board and out of the event.

Rene Sciarone was the event’s first major incident, hitting a deer at checkpoint four on Coast Road. The impact with the juvenile deer slewed his car across the road and he rolled into the trees. Sciarone was unhurt but unable to continue.

Setting out on a determined drive up the race order, Morgan set fastest time of the day on lap two – a 12.51 sec lap – while chasing down early leader Tony McCall.

The race was jam-packed with action and drama and much of it centred on the unlimited race cars: P3 starter Tony McCall had seized the lead after the first lap but was almost immediately out with an electrical issue that handed the lead to Morgan.

Steven Stokes had started P4 and quickly powered through to second at the end of lap two but dropped out of contention on lap seven and was sixth at the finish. Former multiple winner Clim Lammers also fell victim to electrical issues, completing only half the race distance. Christchurch’s Jacob Brownlees was hit by class 9 racer Maurice Bain and was out with a severed crank angle sensor wire. He had also broken a suspension strut bolt.

The 90 degree corner after the high speed start-finish straight claimed its share of racers. Trevor Cooper crashed through the barriers at turn one in his massive American-built Jimco; Campbell Witheford struck them a glancing blow in his smaller Kiwi-built Cougar VW; Gregg Carrington Hogg gathered in a good few and parked on them in his class 9 Chev powered Baja car, and Albany’s Mike Fraser barrel-rolled over the top of them.

Last year’s winner and defending champion, Fraser was on a charge from a P20 qualifying spot up the field but crashed out spectacularly at the beginning of lap 3 while fourth overall.
He said the Motomuck/Wheelmuck Racer Engineering Toyota V8 single-seater had been jumping out of second gear and he had missed his braking marker at the end of the 130 km/h straight. The car barrel-rolled off, tapping the rear of Clim Lammers’ car as it went, then vaulted the barriers and landed on its wheels in long grass alongside the intersection “so I waved the marshals away and got back on the track but it was obvious the car wasn’t right and I didn’t want to damage it for nothing”. The car was parked at the end of that lap.

Jono Climo had started sixth and best of the 4WD Bits unlimited class race trucks, but disaster struck before the end of the first lap when the main battery feed fuse spiked and killed power midway around a corner, leaving the truck stranded.

“We watched as the rest of the field bounced off and around the sides of us and into the distance. Using my harness buckle I managed to arc across the fuse posts to start the truck to move it off the track. We then bypassed the fuse to get us going,” he said.

As he started his fight back, he was hit in the head by a large rock that cracked his helmet visor in half.

“We struggled around track with my left hand over my eye for protection before our third gremlin kicked in……the throttle jammed wide open with 668hp trying to escape!”

Climo limped the big truck back to the pits using the battery cut-out and sorted the throttle problem – a rock jammed in the linkage.

He would finish a lap down on class winner Grant ‘Rowdy’ Rosenburg, who started 44th and finished 14th.

John Morgan’s perseverance with his misbehaving car was rewarded with a welcome chequered flag. He finished 3:40 ahead of second-placed Brendon Midgely. His elapsed time for the full 200 km distance was an exceptional 2:33.07. Only nine cars finished on the lead lap and completed the full 200 km; 50 of the original 78 were able to complete enough distance to be classified winners.

2017 North Harbour Vehicles/Grabtruck.co.nz Woodhill 100

Top ten

John Morgan (winner class 1)
Brendon Midgely (winner HasTrak class 3)
Rick Sciarone
Ben Thomasen (winner JG Civil S class)
Carl Ruiterman (winner U class)
Steven Stokes
Trevor Cooper
Tim Ackers (winner HasTrak Challenger class)
Todd Graham (winner class 5)
Joel Giddy

Full race results for the Woodhill 100 and the youth Kiwitruck enduro are at: https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Sessions/4418743#all-results

Christchurch’s Wayne Moriarty, one of the fastest and most experienced offroad racers in New Zealand, has once more scooped the Mainland Challenge trophy.

Moriarty took a clean sweep of the first day’s short course (stadium) racing at the Canterbury club’s purpose-built West Melton track.

Driving his Alumicraft Toyota single seater he bested the times of many more powerful unlimited class cars to line up P3 on the grid for Sunday’s enduro, and chased pole man Jacob Brownlees and P2 Daniel Powell into the rock-strewn forest course of the 200 km endurance race the following day.

Powell, grappling with engine concerns, settled into second place behind the flying Brownlees while Moriarty had a rock smashed his power steering and had to pit for repairs.

A late race stop for fuel put Powell at a disadvantage and he too was on the comeback trail, carving through the field aiming to chase down Moriarty and gain sight of the rear of Brownlees’ car. The leader had gone without a fuel stop, banking on his car’s ability to run 200 km on one fill.

In the end there were not enough laps for Powell to close the gap. Brownlees swept to a well-deserved win with 10 mm of fuel swishing around the base of his fuel tank – an improvement on the previous year when he ran out of fuel crossing the finish line.

Wayne Moriarty put in the fastest lap of the race, a 15:44.706 on lap six of ten.

Running in second place for the later stages of the race, Moriarty found himself nursing a crippled car after the rocky surface eliminated first his front and then rear brakes, leaving him only with the car’s ‘cutting’ brakes as he held on to third overall.

The effort was worthwhile, the Euroblast car finishing just 1:35 behind the more powerful car of Brownlees and 34 seconds ahead of a charging Powell. Brownlees also won the unlimited class and Moriarty took out HasTrak class three.

Fourth overall after a determined drive was Paul Preston, who won 4WD Bits class 8 in his V8 four wheel drive Toyota Hilux. Bryan Chang, who led the class after the first round, had his GT Radial Ford Falcon ute cut out deep in the forest but had completed enough laps to be classified a finisher and continues to lead 4WD Bits class 8.

Dunedin’s Dave Ballantyne won 4WD Bits class 4 in his Nissan Terrano after fellow Otago racer Wayne Wilson went out of the enduro.

In Class 5 for cars with engines up to 1350 cc, Christchurch’s Clint Densem scored a clean sweep of the class heats but was hit from behind on the opening lap of the enduro, delayed with a damaged front suspension and brakes. He finished 10^th overall for the weekend and continues to lead class 5.

Daniel Rusbatch put in a storming drive over the two days to win class seven for cars with 1.2-litre VW engines or 1.0-litre water cooled engines. He climbed from 20^th to 11^th in the enduro, completing eight of a possible ten laps.

HasTrak Challenger class for cars with 1.6-litre VW engines was won convincingly by Andrew Knight.

In the sport’s ‘new wave’ – the side by side or UTV classes, there were standout drives from Roger McKay in U class for the more standard vehicles and from Bob Uttridge in the more modified JG Civil S class. Roger McKay finished fifth overall, just ahead and thus ahead of all the S class entries. Rosco Gaudin, the other U class entry, did not finish the distance in the enduro but was classified 22^nd and with three second places on the first day is still handily placed in the championship.

The 2017 Mainland Challenge was the fourth round of the Polaris New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship in association with HasTrak. Round five brings the championship back to Christchurch in early August.