One last 'yahoo' around the Grand Old Lady of fast things
A guest post by motorsport writer Eric Thompson, PLUS: The Week That Was and the Weekend That Will Be
Eric Thompson is a long-time motorsport correspondent and former colleague at the Herald and has an unbridled passion for the combination of man and machine.
It is with a heavy heart that I contemplate that Pukekohe Park Raceway is to be no more. The owner of the land, Auckland Thoroughbred Racing, has decided to expand its racing and training facilities and will not renew the motorsport lease.
With a lack of investment on the motorsport side and an ageing infrastructure, especially the stands, it was a commercial inevitability.
It joins a long list of purpose-built New Zealand tracks that have closed over the years, all of which have unique stories. However, it’s Pukekohe, the grand old lady of Kiwi circuits, that has the most storied history.
It was an old-school track with its quirky layout and the buttcheek-tightening bomb hole as you enter the right-hander at the end of the front straight. It was a brave driver, or rider, who would hold it flat through there with the chassis twisting and squirming.
At least the old girl is having one hell of a farewell shindig, with the snarling V8 Supercars back this weekend for one last yahoo around the place.
I have memories of the place both fond and terrifying. After an inauspicious attempt at motocross — falling off and then being used as traction never appealed to me — I took up circuit racing.
With the help of the great two-stroke tuner and racer Bob Haldane, I built a highly modified Yamaha RD250B and in the 1970s went racing. In my second year, I managed to get an entry into one of the support classes for the 1977-78 Marlboro International Series.
The MIS was the equivalent of the four-wheel Tasman Series with some of the biggest names in motorcycle racing coming to New Zealand. It featured the likes of Japanese 500cc world championship star Hideo Kanaya, Isle of Man TT winner Chas Mortimer, America AMA champion Wes Cooley, future world 500cc champion Italian Marco Luccinelli and the incredible Australian quartet of Greg Hansford, Warren Willing and brothers Murray and Jeff Sale. The Kiwi contingent was pretty damn useful as well with Roger Freeth, Stu Avant, Graeme Crosby, Trevor Discombe, John Woodley and Dennis Ireland.
At the Pukekohe round I had a good practice and lined up with some confidence on the day of the race. Being a support class we started early in the day and it was with high hopes that I popped the clutch as the flag dropped - no lights back then.
For the first couple of laps things were going swimmingly until the demon that is a two-stroke engine came into play. For those who have raced two-strokes before, you can guess what happened: yep, that moment when your heart stops as the high-pitched scream of a flat-out engine suddenly goes silent and you desperately try and pull the clutch in as the motor seizes.
I wasn’t quite quick enough and got pitched head-over heels down the back straight, totalling the bike while discovering some limbs can twist way beyond what you thought without breaking.
There was a positive to come out of not being able to race the remaining rounds. I decided to hitchhike around the country and follow the rest of the series. Lo and behold, on the side of the road with my thumb stuck out on the way to the next round, Roger Freeth pulls over and offers me a ride and a job for the rest of the series as a gofer.
Over the next few rounds I got to know Roger, with all his quirky and innovative ways, quite well. Setting up his bike with the wing at the front and wing over the back seat was a challenge and weirdly different, but that’s a story for another day.
PUKEKOHE arrived on the racing scene in 1963* and has been the premier motorsport venue since then. It has had a few upgrades, including the introduction of a chicane along the back straight after the return of the Supercars in 2013, but has remained largely the same.
The track has hosted three blue-riband classes of four-wheel racing, most recently the Supercars (2001-2007 and 2013-2019), the New Zealand Grand Prix (1963-1973 and 1975-1991) and, of course, the magnificent Tasman Series (1964-1975).
During its debut season, Pukekohe held the New Zealand Grand Prix. For a time in the ’60s and ’70s the best open-wheel racers in the world would come down to New Zealand during the off-season in Europe and the Americas.
Try to imagine rocking up to Pukekohe to be one of 43,000 fans settling in to watch Bruce McLaren, Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, Chris Amon and John Surtees doing battle. It would be akin to parking up today and taking a seat in the stand to watch Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastien Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo going wheel-to-wheel around Pukekohe.
For the record, Surtees won.
The Tasman Series is a legend all of its own and the NZGP was an integral part of the series for many years. Others to grace the series and Pukekohe included Jim Clark, Phil Hill, Jackie Stewart, Derek Bell, Jochen Rindt, Mike Hailwood, Roberto Moreno and Keke Rosberg. There’s a mere five F1 world champions in there and a sixth, New Zealand’s only world champion Denny Hulme, also raced.
Moving back to two wheels for a moment, other than the aforementioned Marlboro International Series, Pukekohe also hosted the annual New Zealand Classic Motorcycle Festival.
In 1999, the 20th year of the festival, the greatest motorcycle racer in history, Giacomo Agostini, arrived at the track with four MV Agusta Grand Prix bikes — so cool.
Agostini won 15 world titles and 10 Isle of Man TTs and a crowd of 10,000 people turned up to watch him put two in-line four cylinder bikes, a three-cylinder and an experimental six-cylinder bike through their respective paces.
A close second for fans was in 2004 when Surtees (the only person to have won an F1 world championship and a motorcycle world championship) returned with an MV Agusta. Also on hand that year were John Britten’s iconic self-built V-Twin superbike and the replica of Burt Munro’s Indian that was used in The World’s Fastest Indian.
Finally, for those who have a liking for the more contemporary action at Pukekohe you can’t go past the Supercars.
One of New Zealand’s earlier disruptors in the Australian series, Greg Murphy, multiple conqueror of the Bathurst 1000, monstered the opposition in four of the first five events at Pukekohe. He stamped his dominance on the Kiwi round right from the get-go in 2001. He put his car on pole and won all three races over the weekend in the K-Mart Commodore.
Current IndyCar pilot Scott McLaughlin made his name in Supercars and has often mentioned he was inspired by watching Murph race while sitting on the hill. It was apt that McLaughlin got his first Supercars’ win at Pukekohe in 2018.
While neither will be racing this weekend, another Kiwi speed star will be expected to be near the front of the grid. Shane van Gisbergen, who grew up in South Auckland in the long shadow of Pukekohe, has dominated Supercars over the past two years and it would shock nobody if the 33 year old continued that supremacy this weekend.
There will be a plethora of memories for those who raced and spectated at the track over the past 60 years - hold on to them dearly as the grand old lady’s time has come.
* While I have made every effort to get the dates and years right, I’m no statistical historian and will own any errors.
Supercars races 27-29, Pukekohe, Sat 4.40pm Sunday 12.55pm & 4.10pm, Sky Sport 5
THE WEEK THAT WAS
It might not have been the most high-profile passing of the week, but the sudden death of former rugby player and commentator Willie Los’e in South Africa has hit colleagues and friends hard, all across the rugby divide.
Andrew Alderson penned this lovely tribute in the Herald. I can’t claim to know Los’e well, but this paragraph resonated.
Broadcaster Jason Pine noted that when you went out for a drink with Los’e, “every round felt like his round" such was Willie’s determination to ensure everyone had a good time. He was a gold medal contender for whipping his wallet out first at social functions.
This week saw the 50th anniversary of the Munich Olympics massacre, an event which this excellent retrospective in NPR says “changed the way we think about terrorism”.
“It was basically sending the message, because the theme of the Olympics is peace and cooperation. And if the Olympics weren’t safe, nothing would be,” says [Bruce] Hoffman, the terrorism researcher. “It ushered in, I think, the modern era of terrorism that we’re still enmeshed in today and can’t escape.”
Expat New Zealander Ian Narev has been picked to chair NZ Rugby Commercial (NZRC), the joint venture between New Zealand Rugby and Silver Lake. He went to Cambridge University, joining other alumni Mark Robinson, Matt Foulds, Stephen Evans and Simon Patterson who either played a key role in the deal or will play a key role in the new venture.
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
Some of the tennis has been incredible and while the enforced absence of Novak Djokvic does colour the following statement a little, it really does feel like we’re in a changing-of-the-guard moment on both sides of the draw. The quarter-final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner was something else. The women’s semifinals are being played as this is being prepared, but the men’s semis should be every bit as entertaining, particularly the one with the home interest.
Alcaraz, v France Tiafoe, US Open semifinal, New York, tomorrow 7am, Spark Sport
I felt myself being embarrassed for the Black Caps last night. Despite this being the tail end of a golden generation of New Zealand cricket, they have not beaten Australia in Australia in any format for 11 years. To argue, as Kane Williamson did, that they don’t have a psychological problem playing over there just doesn’t marry with what everybody can see (it was also magnified by the fact Williamson went out to a dreadful ball and a worse shot).
Sure, the conditions are tough, probably more akin to batting in New Zealand than Australia, but getting rolled for 82 and failing to put any pressure on Australia’s seamers was inept.
Australia v NZ, Cairns, Sunday 4.20pm, Sky Sport 3
Eyes on Black Ferns’ great Kendra Cocksedge as she attempts to lift the Farah Palmer Cup for the fifth time in her 100th game for the province. Rugby Park has been renamed Te Ohaere-Fox Cocksedge Park, in recognition of Cocksedge and Steph Te Ohaere-Fox, another red-and-black centurion, who are both retiring.
Canterbury v Auckland, Christchurch, Saturday 3.05pm, Sky Sport 2
After an interminable and, in the Warriors’ case, pointless end to the NRL season we have two neighbour-against-neighbour battles to highlight the opening weekend of the playoffs.
Penrith v Parramatta, Penrith, tonight 9.50pm; Roosters v Souths, Sydney, Sunday 6.05pm, both Sky Sport 4
I know I said I wouldn’t get excited about the Premier League until after the World Cup, but I have a sneaking suspicion this match might be between the teams who end up first and second at the end of the season.
Manchester City v Tottenham, Etihad Stadium, Sunday 4.30am, Sky Sport EPL
There’s a bunch of other stuff that I probably won’t get in front of but nevertheless should be on your radar, like the F1 Italian GP, the IndyCar series finale involving Scott Dixon and Scott McLaughlin, who both have outside chances to win, and the second week of the AFL finals.
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I don't think I could think of a better epitaph than 'every round felt like his round'. What a wonderful tribute