V8SuperTourers appoints marketing and promotions expert

21 September 2011

V8SuperTourers appoints marketing and promotions expert

With New Zealand’s opening round of the inaugural race season of V8SuperTourers racing just five months away, V8SuperTourers Ltd has appointed marketing and event management specialist Cherie Brown as their new marketing, promotions and event manager.

Brown is well-known in New Zealand’s new vehicle and motorsport sectors through her roles with Rally New Zealand as marketing and promotions manager and with Peugeot Concessionaires New Zealand as their key marketing person. The Aucklander also has considerable event management expertise, having contracted to several organisations in recent years such the New Zealand Marine Export Group with their Millennium Cup superyacht events and the increasingly-successful annual auto and motorsport expo CRC Speedshow. Most recently, she has been the business development manager for New Zealand’s largest nationwide equipment hire provider, HireQuip.

“We’re absolutely delighted to have someone of Cherie’s calibre join our team,” says managing director Mark Petch. “Cherie’s extensive experience and industry contacts will benefit our dynamic, new V8SuperTourer series.”

Petch continues: “Cherie will be responsible for marketing the series as a whole and managing our seven 2012 events which start with the opening round at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park over the weekend of 17 to 19 February.

“Cherie joins V8SuperTourers with many positive aspects of the new motorsport series well in-hand. We have pre-sold more than a thousand tickets to the opening round already. We have the strong commercial support of both Ford and Holden New Zealand and a fantastic broadcast package confirmed with TV3’s top-rating Gillette Motorsport show with the last race from each round screened live. We now have 17 cars confirmed to race in our inaugural season after a new deal was signed in the last two weeks. We also have a truly top-class line-up of talented drivers eager to getting racing in our purpose-built V8SuperTourers. These include Greg Murphy, Craig Baird, John McIntyre, Kayne Scott, Andy Booth, Daniel Gaunt, Scott McLaughlin, Paul Manuell and many more talented competitors.

“With only five months until we open the gates to the first sprint race event at Hampton Downs, this is a perfect time to bring Cherie into the team and put further emphasis into making the V8SuperTourers a fantastic race series for fans, competitors and sponsors alike.”

Brown is looking forward to the challenges of helping create history in New Zealand motorsport with the new V8 touring car series.

“I have worked with both John McIntyre and Mark Petch in the past and am thrilled to be asked to join the team at V8SuperTourers. It promises to take New Zealand motor racing to new heights,” says Brown.
“From my years with Rally New Zealand and its popular World Rally Championship events, I know that race fans want to see stars in cars with intense, ultra competitive racing and fun support activities and entertainment to offer them a great day out. V8SuperTourers ticks all the boxes as far as I am concerned.

“I am very confident that with the excellent foundation the series’ founders have laid down, the V8SuperTourers series is set to provide Kiwi race fans with a similar, or better, trackside experience that the Australian V8Supercar Championship does so well,” Brown says.

“While we don’t yet have an iconic annual race like Bathurst in New Zealand, we have already talked about the possibility of developing an event of a similar scale here. With a lot of hard work over the next three to five years, it’s certainly possible.

“This season we’ll be focussed on the four initial sprint rounds followed by three exciting endurance races which include season one’s grand final in Christchurch in October next year. This event at the Powerbuilt Tools International Raceway, just outside Christchurch, is set to be a major international motorsport event which we hope will benefit the region in many ways.”

Brown starts her new role with V8SuperTourers on 3 October 2011.

2012 V8SuperTourer Calendar
* Events which feature the 2012 V8Challenge Cup
Sprint Championship
Round 1*: 17-19 February – Hampton Downs Motorsport Park, North Waikato
Round 2: 30 March – 1 April – Powerbuilt Tools Raceway, Christchurch
Round 3*: 27-29 April – Manfeild, Fielding
Round 4*: 18-20 May – Hampton Downs Motorsport Park, North Waikato
Endurance Championship
Round 5*: 10-12 August – Taupo Motorsport Park, Taupo
Round 6*: 21-23 September – Hampton Downs Motorsport Park, North Waikato
Round 7: 26-28 October – Final, Powerbuilt Tools Raceway, Christchurch
Note: All dates subject to change on confirmation of V8Supercar Championship calendar.

For more information, please visit www.v8supertourers.co.nz

ENDS

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