After a 10-year absence, the 1500 horsepower, five-tonne monsters of the New Zealand SuperTruck championship will return to Pukekohe park raceway as a support class to the BNT NZ SuperTourers event at the end of November
BNT NZ SuperTourers sales and marketing manager Mike Marsden says the NZ SuperTrucks will provide more entertainment for the series.
“For racing fans, getting these big rigs back to Pukekohe is fantastic. They are absolutely amazing to watch. There are a lot of truck racing fans and we are confident there will be a good following when they return to the track in November,” says Marsden.
Local SuperTruck driver Troy Wheeler says the Pukekohe event will be the first of a five round championship for the trucks and is rejuvenation for the series.
“To be back at Pukekohe after 10-years is really great for us. There are also quite a few race trucks in the North Island that haven’t been out for a few years so getting back to Pukekohe may be the incentive to get them back on the track,” says Wheeler.
“We’ll hit our top speed of 160km/hr part way down the back straight, and the new section down the end will provide a couple of new passing opportunities for our trucks and drivers.”
The last time these diesel behemoths raced at the Pukekohe circuit, a crash saw the Mack of Cedric Abernethy go through two safety barriers and end upside down near the pit lane.
Abernethy broke both his legs and his truck was a mangled wreck, but now with the recent safety upgrades made to the Pukekohe circuit, the SuperTrucks will return.
Truck Racing was first established in New Zealand in 1989.The founding members decided that racing tractor units sounded like a great idea after watching racing in Europe and Australia. They developed road-going trucks into racing machines and developed three different classes and from there the sport became popular with kiwi motor-sport fans.
The NZ SuperTrucks have had many drivers over the years such as Denny Hulme, Neil Allport, Jim Richards, Avon Hyde, Ron Salter, Inky Tulloch, Robin and Andrew Porter and Calvin Bonney.
In recent years V8 stars such as Kayne Scott and Angus Fogg have jumped behind the wheel.
It is expected that around a dozen NZ SuperTrucks will compete at round one of the series at Pukekohe.
