Christchurch off road drivers Jacob Brownlees and Daniel Powell go into a rapidfire round of racing this weekend at West Melton doing battle for the unlimited-class southern region title.
In a battle of the turbo cars, the pair are separated by just four points at the top of class one and have been battling for supremacy all year.
Powell’s American-built Tatum has a Mazda rotary engine – the only one in New Zealand offroad racing – and is a technological masterpiece which Powell admits takes some mastering. He leads the class with 134 points, topping the table for both northern and southern regions.
The Bakersfield single-seater of Brownlees runs a Mitsubishi Evo engine in a robust tube-frame chassis designed and built in the Bay of Plenty. The talented Cantabrian has already shown the car’s winning potential in endurance and short course racing. Brownlees is second in class across both regions, just four points behind Powell on 130. His son Jack leads the separate Crabb Racing Kiwitruck youth category with 140 points.
But leading the championship outright – and well capable of taking the championship – is former southern racer Roger McKay in his standard-class Yamaha UTV.
The hard-charging McKay has been dominating U class in the south this year, and where the standard and modified UTVs race together on a handicap grid he has been known to carve his way through half the modified field as well. The JG Civil modified UTV class is led in the south by Bob Uttridge on 131 points.
HasTrak Challenger class for cars with 1.6-litre VW engines is dominated Andrew Knight who has amassed 125 points – a commanding lead over both regions.
Wayne Moriarty (Christchurch) , one of the fastest and most experienced offroad racers in New Zealand, won the Mainland Challenge trophy earlier this year in his Euroblast Alumicraft Toyota but starts from a low points base after missing the first round. He leads HasTrak class three for the southern region with 71 points.
In the 4WD Bits truck classes, Ron Crosby (Mitsubishi Pajero, 132 points) has been the consistent entrant in production class; Darrin Thomason (Mitsubishi Pajero) leads class four for modified chassis-based trucks with 72 points; Christchurch’s Bryan Chang dominating the spectacular class 8 for unlimited race trucks in his GT Radial-backed Ford Falcon turbo.
Racing in the fifth round of the 2017 Polaris New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship starts at West Melton on Sunday at 10.30 am, with three heats of five laps for every class and an all-in feature race. Spectator admission is $10 per person, children under 15 free.
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