BNT NZSuperTourer 2015

[NZSTfan]

Yes it was a pretty nice day at HD yesterday watching a handful of ST's fire up and turn some laps. Smeg where there, as was Hydraulink, JMR, iSport, and the Varneys, all looking battered and bruised from the enduros, but with the JMR Falcon basically all black, as we know they are chasing new sponsors, and hopefully have them signing on the dotted line too.

Velocity have done a much better report on the day than speedcafe (no surprises) and can be found on this link...

https://www.facebook.com/VelocityNews

Renee, if she can make it, will be a huge boost for the category. Not only is she a really nice and genuine person, but she is clearly a good peddler as well. Mark Heimgartner was telling me that she was quite proud of the fact that she administers greater brake pressure than Paul Morris! so she is good under brakes. Within 10 or so laps on decent tyres she was equalling Paul Morris's race pace at HD (low 1.06's) and she has never been to HD before. I don't know what her final times where as we only spent 1.5hrs there, but i wouldn't be surprised if she improved some more. Watching her exit T1 it was clear that she was confident to get on the throttle a bit earlier than some of the other drivers who were there. And if she does get the gig and her and Andre pair up (they are a couple) for the enduros then that would be a real boost as well.

There was a bit of 'fizz' in the air for the short time we spent there. All the negative tripe that you read on the likes of Track Torque is just not true. ST are working hard on making the category what it should be, and that is at the top, and with great drivers and full grids. I'd love to know who writes for Track Torque, as to me it seems very amateurish, and something a 16 year old would write....just my opinion.

I spent a fair bit of time speaking to Owen Evans while his star-son Mitch was doing laps. He mentioned some interesting things, and when it comes from the 'horses mouth' so to speak, then you have to stand up and listen. He mentioned that there is literally a queue of drivers in Aus who want to get into these things as it is a logical step to DVS and SC. He also mentioned that the running costs of NZST and TLX are about the same, and some front running TL's are up there as well, i.e. about 250k per season. Now I know this goes against what Mark Petch posted on here a while ago, but this number does seem to be the common denominator for running a full season. I am not going to bother getting into a 'he said, she said' type thing here with Mark because that would be pointless, but the 250k/yr does seem to be the minimum budget. I am sure there are teams who run on less than that, but whether or not they are at the pointy end is another thing.

It was also rumoured that Tony D'Alberto is eyeing up Foggys seat. This will be another boost for the series as they will be a title contender one would think. Also rumoured was the possibility of Andy Booth returning to the series, but of course it is just rumour. It did however come from someone close to Andy. If things like this do happen we could actually have quite a unique thing going on here where the old Ford vs Holden thing has been battered to death, and maybe the series will become NZ vs Aus?

A few of the other Aussie hopefuls mentioned in Velocities report all seemed to rave about the cars, and this soon filters back to other people in Aus. Add to that the fact that Brad Jones was wanting to attend but could not due to a date clash, says a lot as well. I think its quite possible that NZST may have V8SC satellite teams for this year, whether that be for the rest of the 14/15 season, or the 15/16 season I don't know, but it all does look promising. It seems that whenever a young person gets into one of these things they just rave about them. So if Macauley Jones likes them (when he gets a fang in one) and the $$ makes sense then we could see a BJR entry in to NZST. I would then go one step further and say that others would be looking as well (GRM, T8, maybe even FPR??).

NZST tell us there should be 10-12 cars for the first sprint, and gradually building from there. They are certainly putting in the ground work, which is great.

I think its clear to all that NZST have hit a low point, which I think is actually a good thing. You have to hit rock-bottom some times to realise where you can improve. I honestly believe this is the beginning of a turning point with NZST, but we shall see I guess.

We are looking forward to the 1st sprint round where hopefully there will be a few surprises there

Cheers

Stu