Manfield Circuit Chis Amon has always been a great circuit for wings and slicks single seaters and so it proved again with the GVI.Kiwi Formula Open New Zealand (FONZ) series turning it on for the large crowd that had turned up for the Manawatu Car Clubs October Fast Super Truck meeting 21-22 October 2023.
The Graeme Lawrence Cup for ex TRS Tatuus FT50’s is a hotly contested class this season with five of cars fronting for this meeting with Kaden Probst coming away with pole position and three wins for the weekend earning him maximum points for the meeting and a new FONZ FT50 lap record to boot.
Three other young guns competing in this series included Alex Crosbie, Hayden Bakkerus and Zac Christensen who was having his first outing in the ex-Marcus Armstrong Auckland City Toyota FT50.
Poor Bakkerus however was having a horror weekend with electrical problems plaguing his car which brought him two retirements (dnfs). Two-time Formula Ford Champion Alex Crosbie on the other hand was hot on Probst’s tail all weekend using the GVI.Kiwi FONZ series to sharpen his skills up for the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship starting in January next year.
In The Jim Palmer Cup for ex TRS Tatuus FT40’s, young Toby Mc Cormack had it all his own way with fastest lap in qualifying and three race wins in this series, although his job was made a lot easier with only one other car that of Paul Couper contesting the weekend. Unfortunately for Paul suspect E85 fuel caused him problems all weekend with him starting only two races and finishing in only one.
There were three other cars expected to be racing this weekend with the two Mc Donald Brothers not being able to make this meeting with part supply problems. A fifth driver was not able to complete the purchase and prepare a car in time.
Last but by no means least was the David Oxton Cup which saw four of the wickedly fast Formula Atlantic’s/Pacific’s front up on the day with professional racer and local boy Kaleb Ngatoa (main photo) emulating Kaden Probst with pole position and three race wins and a new FONZ lap record of 1:03:624 which was also faster by two tenths of a second than a 40-year-old Formula Pacific lap record set by Craig Baird in a Reynard 93H.
Speaking of Reynards, we had two of them join the field this meeting with Ethan Sillay returning with the car they purchased last year and ran at only two meetings before the Toyota 4AGE detonated itself leaving Ethan’s Dad Tim with a big bill and six months rebuild. Clearly the new engine needs some tuning as it was not producing anything like the power of the other cars in the series.
The second of the Reynard 93H’s was entered and run by Rhys Humphries who has a wealth of motor sport experience in everything from Super Karts and Muscle Cars to Drag racing. Rhys’s car being the ex-Tony Quin car and Rhys had performed a full nut and bolt rebuild on the car which looked absolutely stunning in its 1990’s McLaren F1 inspired livery.
Considering Rhys had not turned a wheel in the car until Friday free practice his performance over the weekend improved dramatically. One can’t help but think when he gets a handle on this car that he will be at the pointy end of the field. The only other Atlantic to run was series stalwart Gary Rush in his Swift DB4 Atlantic car. Gary is having a much better time of it this year with the car performing well finishing in
second place to Kaleb Ngatoa for the weekend.
There are four other Atlantics set to join the David Oxton Cup series over the next couple of months with Kenny Smith not quite there with the 1990 NZGP winning Swift DB4. Kenny reckons he needed another week to finish it and a couple of test days so was most disappointed to miss the Manfield round. It is one of Kenny’s favourite tracks and is suited to the ground effect characteristics of the Atlantics. Hopefully we will see him out at the next round at the Auckland Car Club Summer Series 3 rd round at Taupo International Motorsport Park 26th November.
FONZ have cars for sale and are always looking for new entrants or engineers, This is a great series for learning wings and slicks for young drivers or a great place to race historic Formula Atlantics. For more information on how to get involved in the series contact series Director johntomlin@xtra.co.nz
Or check out our face book page https://www.facebook.com/FormulaOpen
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