THE impending New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild debuts a pole-setting technology giving race fans unprecedented access to the meeting’s activities and on-track action.
Attendees of the most prestigious race on the national summer circuit motorsport calendar, which this year doubles as a celebration of favourite son and Formula One icon Chris Amon, are urged to use a smartphone app believed to be a New Zealand first and potentially international standard-setter.
A service now active for Apple and Android platforms is enabled to personally deliver to every attendee information invaluable to keeping up with all the blow-by-blow racing action over February 11-12.
Particularly enticing is that it will act as a breakthrough conduit for the core must-haves of on-circuit commentary, live timing, race schedules and competitor backgrounders.
A chapter is dedicated to the Toyota Racing Series drivers contesting the NZGP and the Chris Amon Trophy, enabling easy identification of the cars as they flash past.
These alone will be lapped up by cognoscenti, Manfeild chief executive Julie Keane and marketing manager Sarah Hughes suggest, but there’s so much more.
“This development is part of our ongoing commitment to enhance our communication,” says Mrs Keane.
“An idea that started from a discussion on how to improve the sound system to better enable people to hear the commentary has grown into something quite incredible and exciting.
“The app is a free premium service appropriately launched at our premier national motor-racing event – a weekend made all the more important because we are celebrating our local hero, Chris Amon.
“Smartphones have become a necessity of modern life and we have gone all out to tailor this service to a level befitting the occasion.”
“We’re very excited to release this free-use app and have people connect to Manfeild right from their phone,” adds Ms Hughes.
“Manfeild strives to make the NZGP a special experience. We believe this will be a point of difference that will make the 2017 race weekend particularly memorable. All you need is your smartphone and some headphones and you are away.”
In addition to the audio stream, the app also delivers the special feature of a real-time pit-side video feed, with a roving reporter providing behind-the-scenes titbits.
It will also communicate general circuit information – including where to buy refreshments and souvenirs – as well as team, series and circuit bulletins, plus news reports as they unroll.
In tune with this year’s special theme, the app also provides background specific to Amon – the Bulls-born identity of the 1960s’ and 70s’ who helped design the track – and also has a handy ‘what’s on’ section dedicated to Manfeild’s home town, Feilding.
The impressive tool truly home-grown, being the work of Andrew Owen, a Feilding 20-year-old.
The talented developer who came to turn a fascination for computing by circuitous route – on leaving Palmerston North Boys’ High he started out as a salesman then studied history at Massey University for a year – found the biggest commission his fledgling eight-month-old business, Konnect Applications Limited, an enthralling challenge.
He says users will find it an especially friendly and no-fuss tool.
“It was important we made the app simple. People are going to be sitting out in the sun watching car racing so we needed something people could look at quickly and not detract from what is happening in front of them.”
From Manfeild’s viewpoint, the app’s broader attraction is an incredible flexibility that makes it suitable to tailor to the requirements of future events at a venue renowned for its ‘sky’s the limit’ aptitude.
“Manfeild hosts a huge diversity of events, many of national and international calibre, and we see the app being applicable to each and every one of them,” Mrs Keane says.
“We live in a world of fast-changing and incredible advancement and this app takes Manfeild right to the forefront. We’re very proud to be the trailblazers with this.”
The app does not silence the traditional loudspeaker-delivered on-course commentary and, of course, the circuit will offer a printed programme that this year becomes a Chris Amon commemorative collectible.
Manfeild’s intent to honour Amon, who passed away on August 3, 2016, started with the 3km main track being renamed after the 73-year-old and will continue during race weekend, culminating with a dinner on the evening of February 12.
Interest in the dinner is high and no wonder: The guest of honour is Belgian Formula One and endurance racing superstar Jacky Ickx, whose friendship with Amon began when they were team-mates at Ferrari in 1968.
Also here for the celebration are two cars special to Amon – the Maserati 250F that he raced domestically, so superbly that it led to him being invited to England to begin his top-level racing career, and the Ford GT40 in which he achieved his single biggest success, winning the 1966 Le Mans 24-Hour.
The GT40 is an exact reproduction commissioned by Amon fan and motorsport identity Grant Aitken, of Queenstown, and will be driven by Ickx at the weekend.
The Belgian knows the type well; he claimed the closest ever Le Mans finish in the type in 1969, scoring the first of six titles on the French circuit by a scant few seconds.
In addition to being the finale of the 20-car Castrol Toyota Racing Series, which is again heavily subscribed by overseas talents – and three top Kiwis – racing not just for the NZGP but also the Chris Amon Trophy for overall series success, the meeting hosts the Toyota 86 Championship, Formula 1600, ENZED Central Muscle Cars, BNT NZ Touring Cars, PORTERGROUP V8 Utes, Pirelli Porsche Series and TradeZone GT1/GT2 and GT3/GT4.
The programme is so action-packed that it will run, on February 11, into something not seen at Manfeild for some years, a twilight meeting.
Ticket details can be found on the Manfeild website (www.Manfeild.co.nz) and Manfeild’s Facebook page.
The Apple Link is at https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/manfeild/id1199342882?mt=8 and the Android Link is at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nz.co.konnectapp.manfeildapp&hl=en
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