The fifth round of the Dave McCahon Trophy, part of the 2025 Canterbury Motorsport Interclub Series, the Scott’s Shingle Sprint in Ashburton (13 September 2025), will once again test those who have the “right stuff” to tackle hairpins and fast corners. A great fun event with a great BBQ for lunch in a normally peaceful area of Wakanui, east of Ashburton. Entries are now open on Sporty.
Planning is also well underway for Round 6 which is the RATEC Summit Rd Hillclimb on Saturday 18th October (to avoid clashing with Canterbury’s Club Day 2 and Autosport’s planned gravel sprint).
This may be the last round of the 2025 Interclub series as dates run out due to holidays and other planned events. There are only five potential dates to squeeze in the Autosport rounds.
Following the Ratec Motorsport – Motorsport Weekend Autocross on March 29th, the first round of the 2025 Interclub Series, there have been three more events to get us to the usual halfway point.
On 7 June, Ashburton Car Club held the Levels Dual Car Sprint – Interclub 2. A normal chilly June day with 19 taking to the damp track that dried reasonably rapidly and times plummeted. It was great to watch the battle on the time sheets as the lead bounced between four different drivers until Nathan Clark put in a blinding performance on his seventh run to take the win. (Results attached. Points: Ashburton 86 and Canterbury 69.)
The record for the greatest number of runs on the day was finally broken by Sharon Keir as she scorched around the track 14 times to take 13th on her 12th run with a time of 4:01.385 minutes.
The Canterbury Car Club held Interclub 3 on June 28th. The Autocross at Ruapuna attracted a field of 38 which turned out to be an Ashburton benefit as they grabbed five of the top 9 places and the most points.
The winner was Gareth Evans with Greg Cross second (main photo) and Nathan Clark in third. There were three courses with three runs at each. The quirk was that all runs counted, and this caught out a few who either hit cones or did a wrong direction on one or more of their runs.
Results can be viewed on the Canterbury Car Club website: Autocross Results
THE LUPP CUP FOR NAVIGATION RALLIES 2025
August saw the running of Round 3 with the Canterbury 2nd Lupp Cup Navigation Rally for 2025. Ratec recovered some points with three crews featuring in the top four. Using the roads around the back of the airport and McLeans Island, the Thorpe crew produced a magic event starting and ending at the Highway Inn. Dick Gardner, Ray Hunton and Allan Coker took the win on the night.
The final Round is Ratec’s annual Spring Navigation Rally on October 16th.
As always, practice is available every third Thursday (usually) of each month. Navigation Rallies also offers members of other clubs the opportunity to hone their night driving skills and to improve communication between driver and navigator.
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