Christchurch based off road specialist Wayne Moriarty has won the 2011 Mainland Challenge, raced over the weekend on tracks in the Christchurch region.

Competed as part of the 2011 Mickey Thompson New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship, Moriarty won all three in-class heats at the Rock FM Raceway at West Melton on Saturday then followed that up with a hard-fought victory in the 160 km endurance race at Ohoka northwest of the city the following day.

Closest challenger to the flying Cantabrian on Saturday was Nigel Sutherland, driving his Cougar Evo Toyota.  Sutherland led one race until Moriarty passed him in spectacular fashion over the track’s imposing “tabletop” jump, which propels the top cars up to two metres in the air over a distance of up to 25 metres.

The following day, Hamish Lawlor took pole for the 160 km enduro race and led for the first laps while Moriarty battled for second place with Winton driver Donald Preston in his powerful Toyota Hilux V8 and Christchurch’s Dennis Andreassend, winner of the first South Island round. (more…)

North Island driver Nick Hall has held the lead in the NZ Offroad Racing Championship for five weeks but now looks likely to lose his advantage when the fastest South Islanders race this weekend at West Melton and Ohoka near Christchurch.

Pukekohe-based Hall cannot race in the South Island rounds of the championship, which are divided on a regional basis.  He currently holds a narrow six point lead in the 2011 Mickey Thompson New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship.

But a record entry for this year’s championship looms at the Christchurch round, the Mainland Challenge, and among them are several leading teams keen to dethrone the Aucklander.  As at Wednesday June 1 there were 36 cars and four wheel drives entered, with another half dozen likely to be late entries.

The championship points battle will be keenly fought out in Christchurch. Dennis Andreassend still leads the unlimited category, Whakatane Commercial Spares Class One, after a dominant performance in muddy going at the opening round in Nelson.  He held the outright championship lead for just a week between the Nelson round and Palmerston North; he now has his chance to regain the lead with the next round, the Mainland Challenge at Christchurch on June 11 and 12.

The team has been making the most of the break between the first and second South Island rounds to fettle the Cougar Evo VW; Andreassend is an aggressive driver who has always made the most of the stadium-style racing that forms the first day of racing at the Mainland Challenge. (more…)

If you head down to Meremere this Sunday (27 March), there will be plenty of motorsport action to watch but it won’t be on the drag strip.

The North Island’s fastest off road racers will meet at the first round of the 2011 Mickey Thompson New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship at Meremere this Sunday.

Organisers say this weekend’s racing is a sure-fire crowd pleaser. Based on the northern side of the main access road to the established Meremere dragway, the Meremere event is all short course, the sport’s spectacular stadium-style racing format.

The 2011 championship will feature seven rounds, with the fastest teams in the north and south coming together at Nelson in early October for the national final where the in-class and overall champions will be decided over two days of racing.

Off Road Association of New Zealand president Tony Gardiner says the 2011 championship season is shaping up to be one of the best in recent years.  With new cars coming into the championship in most classes, he’s expecting the first northern and southern rounds to give an early indication of the strength of the sport.

“We have all-new cars coming in every class, including an American-built Desert Dynamics two-seater Chev V8 race car for Bay of Plenty driver Clive Thornton, a Mitsubishi Evo re-power for the stunning Millennium race car of Alan Butler, several new builds under way in the truck classes and of course multiple champion Tony McCall has a clean-sheet unlimited-class single-seater build under way that will run a big Chev V8 engine.  Add to this the number of competitors who have spent the off-season upgrading their current cars and trucks and the sport has some excellent racing ahead.”

The 2010 national champion Donn Attwood of West Auckland will be back to begin his title defence racing in class 3 for Super 1600 cars.  Attwood runs his RV Magnum Toyota in a two car team with James Buchanan, who races a Cougar Evo Suzuki. (more…)