A non-championship grass autocross event at Teretonga Park on Sunday drew competitors from far and wide, including one from Spain – well almost – another from Tauranga plus a contingent from Central Otago.
Southland Sports Car Club, ClubSport co-ordinator Malcolm Mitchell, modelled the course for the event on the internationally famous Silverstone layout so it was fitting that the entry had an international tinge to it.
Chris Halkyard has just returned from Spain in the last two months, having spent 7 years in Europe teaching English. Halkyard, now resident in Alexandra, was invited by a friend “from way back”, Neil Rogers of Tauranga who had been holidaying in the south and was invited to a track day at Teretonga Park by the Central Otago Motorsport Club on Saturday. While there he found out about the autocross on Sunday and he and three friends entered the event.
Rogers was in his Peugeot 205, a car he shared with a good friend Malcolm Allan while another friend Sam Graham of Cromwell also entered in a Toyota GT86 previously raced in the South Island Endurance Series. Rogers also persuaded Halkyard to enter his first ever motorsport event in his day-to-day transport, a Toyota MR2. Halkyard described the Autocross was a “real hoot and heaps of fun!”
Rogers meanwhile was at the other end of the spectrum experience wise. “I competed in my first ClubSport Champs back in 1980 and it is still fun,” he said.
Competitors tackled the course in a clockwise direction in the morning and in an anti-clockwise direction after lunch and after four runs in each direction when the times were tallied it was Craig Allan of Invercargill who won the event in a Honda Shuttle from fellow Invercargill drivers Jeremy Lennon (Impreza WRX) and Malcolm Mitchell driving his Nissan NX.
Allan took the Over 1600cc Class honours from Lennon with Steve Watson third in a Toyota Starlet GT while Mitchell won the Under 1600cc class from Zac Murch in a Mazda AZ3 and Hayden Fordyce in the Evolution Motorsport Nissan Sentra that is available for hire at ClubSport events.
Mitchell who designed the track for the day said, “the day was epic!” “There was not a single sad face among competitors. It was everything I expected and more.”
The next ClubSport event at Teretonga Park is Round 5 of the Evolution Motorsport ClubSport Championship on Sunday 30 January.
Main Photo: Neil Rogers of Tauranga, Southland Sports Car Club ClubSport Co-ordinator Malcolm Mitchell and recent returnee from Spain, Chris Halkyard of Alexandra, at Sunday’s non-championship grass autocross at Teretonga Park
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