A Day Of Champions At TECT Park

Manukau offroad racer Tony McCall has added yet another trophy to his collection. The most successful driver in the history of New Zealand offroad racing, McCall won four races from four starts at the 2025 stadium offroad championship event at TECT Park near Tauranga on Saturday.

Starting from randomised positions on the five-car class one grid, McCall quickly took the lead in each race, battling with Luke Whiddett in his dad’s RadBul UTV-styled class one rotary-powered car along with Brett Vanner in his ex-Shaun Russell V8 single-seater.

“We had a great day of racing, the car never missed a beat. It’s good to score another win,” said McCall.

Also celebrating a class win was Wayne Spicer in his S-Class Polaris UTV.

Meanwhile, Otakiri’s Gary and Kenna Baker are offroad racing champions after winning not one but two classes at the event.

Gary Baker has been offroad racing since the mid-1980s and drives a massive American-built V8 Pro-4 truck; his daughter Kenna has risen through offroad racing’s youth categories and races a Yamaha YXZ UTV.

In the single-day stadium offroad racing championship on Saturday, Kenna took two second place finishes behind front-runner Scott Mitchell, then won the following two heats to take the title.

“We were gridded with the much faster S-class UTVs which made it hard to tackle Scott but he crashed into the rear of one of the S-class cars and I was able to get those two wins and take the title,” she said.

In his four heats, Gary Baker was gridded with the sport’s fastest vehicles, the class one and class ten single-seater race cars. From random grid positions, he carved through the field to be third and second across the line behind the V8-powered single-seater of multiple national champion Tony McCall.

“To get up close on Tony’s car was really good. The truck ran faultlessly all day though I had to be careful passing some of the smaller cars – they disappear under the bonnet when we hit the jumps!”

Another young Bay of Plenty racer, Tanner Willetts, won the youth Kiwitruck M class title, while Kelvin Heath was second in S class in his debut offroad racing drive.

© Scoop Media