The Ultimate Motorsport Weekend

Preparations are well underway for the Ultimate Motorsport Weekend.

Palmerston North Speedway Promoter Bruce Robertson has been able to confirm the British Lions are returning after nearly pulling off the win last year over the Nelson Tigers.

In 2009 the British Team showed exceptional driving and Teams racing skills to take out second place. English Team manager Guy Parker said "Our aim this year is to be Number 1". These drivers have all now had teams racing experience under their belts so are determined to win this time. They realize it is a tough call when you are up against the likes of the Palmerston North Panthers or the Nelson Tigers who beat us last year in the Final."

The Lions were definitely the crowd favorites last year and the returning team has been confirmed as;

515 Frankie Wainman Junior
84 Tom Harris
490 Mark Taylor
53 Craig Finniken
8 Mick Harris

The British Lions make up one of the twelve teams contesting the ENZED Super Stockcar Teams Championship over Friday and Saturday nights on February 4/5 2011.

Over at Manfeild, the IRC Summer of Thunder Tour returns for Round 4 of the series. 11 classes will make up the race meeting and over 220 cars are expected to start the round.

Headlining the meeting are the GT1/GT2 class.

GT1/GT2 are simply the most modified and fastest race cars in New Zealand. The rules are very unrestricted and if you can build it you can run it. In current form local driver Cameron Jones in his Rotary powered Camaro Tranzam will need to show improvements to catch up with series leader, Craig Corliss (Falcon Supercar) but on past results at the track he should.

“This year we have added more power, but it has come at the cost of reliability” stated Jones. Making nearly 650HP from a turbo charged 13B rotary and in a chassis designed for a Chevrolet V8, the car has massive potential but not quite achieved the expected results.

GT2 will have some stalwart campaigners mixed in with some newer competitors. Graham Barnes Capri (featured in the movie Shaker Run) should show good form on his home track, along with Ross Thurston (EVO), Kester Olivecrona (Mazda RX7) and Winter Series champion 2009 Tony Satherley (Impreza).

The Ultimate Motorsport weekend is expected to attract over 10000 visitors to the Manawatu region.

Ends

© Scoop Media