The eighth and final round for the 2023 Super Sprint summer race season gets underway at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park in the Waikato 5-7 May 2023 which will see the conclusion of several MotorSport New Zealand championship titles.
The six round Toyota 86 Championship will see a newly crowned New Zealand champion with the winner and top rookie (two drivers) receiving an all-expenses paid trip to race a GR Supra GT4 Evo in the third round of the ADAC GT4 Germany championship at the iconic Nürburgring.
In addition, one driver will be picked by the Tony Quinn Foundation and presented the opportunity to test the latest Gen3 Chevrolet Camaro for Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Matakana’s Brock Gilchrist holds a 76-point lead at the top of the standings. Taking the lead at the opening round, Gilchrist quietly gathered points to now put pressure on his rivals to risk it all.
Second placed Clay Osborne (Morrinsville) will be playing for keeps in what will be a thrilling weekend. Leading rookie Rylan Gray (NSW) is 97-points clear of rival Tom Bewley (Hawkes Bay).
The Super V8 Series will hold their inaugural title decider after a four-round season. Leading the overall points is Andrew Turner in the TA2 V8 Muscle Car series with Brady Wild topping the NZ V8 Touring Cars Open series with Robert Berggren leading the NZ TraNZam Challenge.
With growing numbers of TA2 cars joining the group, Hampton Downs will also be the debut of two sisters to the series. Highly popular in Australia with over 100 cars in competition, TA2 is fast becoming the default V8 category for New Zealand drivers.
NZ Sports Cars join the Super Sprint event for their penultimate round of the 2023 season. Dedicated open cockpit race cars, they include a mixture of factory and home-built packages from the Fraser to the Radical.
Leading the open class, Auckland’s Tim Edgell could wrap up the title with a 257-point gap back to second placed Rob Anderson (Radical SR10).
In the 2-L class, Anthony Barker (Juno) holds a 51-point lead over Mt Maunganui’s Dean McCarroll (Juno).
For the fourth time this season the TradeZone GTRNZ category lines up on the Super Sprint grid. It will be a winner takes all weekend with Waiuku’s Kerry Jones the man to beat in his Corvette TraNZam. Jones will also be competing in the Super V8 category.
Trailing by 120 points, Auckland’s Wayne Conder is the only likely contender to take the overall title. The GT2 category leader Shane Parsons (Cambridge) holds third in his Honda Integra – 93 points behind Conder.
In the GT3/GT4 field Auckland’s Ben Goebel (Subaru Legacy) sits ahead of Taupo’s Brian Hamilton (Ford Capri) with best placed GT3 driver Sean Browne (Feilding, Honda Civic) ahead of Palmerston North’s Jamie Potts (Toyota Trueno).
It will also be the conclusion of the four round RYCO 24.7 V8 Ute Championship. In a classic Ford vs Holden battle, current series leader Brad Kroef (Hamilton) has a 30-point lead over his father Greg Kroef. In third place and first of the Holdens is Cambridge’s Phil Ross – a further 14-points behind. Late entrant Jake Stoneman (Waitakere) has shown the Kroef’s he’s there to be a champion contender – climbing to fourth position and in with a mathematical shot of claiming more than a trophy.
The Nexen Tyre Mazda Racing Series has a huge entry of 41 cars. The final round for both the New Zealand and North Island Championship, Wellington’s Simon Baker holds a slender lead for the overall title. Currently seven points behind is Christchurch 16-year-old Chris White with a 100-point gap to third placed Leo Bult (Kumeu).
In the North Island Championship Tauranga’s Rex Edwards holds the advantage with a 38-point lead over Simon Baker with Bult in third, 65-points behind second place. A mix of RX7 and RX8 cars contest the five round series that includes a sub-title for the North and South Island events.
Central Muscle Cars make a return to the Super Sprint series for their title deciding event of 2023. A grid of 25 exotic and V8 powered cars race for the fifth and final time this season to decide who is the champion.
Wanganui’s Tristan Teki (Chevrolet RS Camaro) leads the Group 1A category and holds a slender five-point lead over Hamilton’s Shannon Coker (Holden HQ). Christchurch’s Andy Knight (Chevrolet Camaro) is in third, a further 21-points behind.
In the 1B category, Hampton Downs’ Andrew Sinclair (Holden VK Commodore) leads Silverdale’s Bruce Kett (Chevrolet Camaro) by 46 points.
Each category will have practice on Friday 5 May with qualifying and one race on the Saturday. They each get a race on Sunday morning and a concluding race in the afternoon.
Sunday will be televised live to Sky Sport (from 9am) and TV3 (from 1pm).
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