Motorsport machinations - fair play to Johnny Mac

John McIntyre's solid NZV8 crash after the rains came down at Levels. Photo / NZPA

First up I want to make it abundantly clear that I have no issue with the people involved in the following incident, rather the idea that it could have happened.

Rules are rules and if you can use them to your advantage so be it. All winners use the rules to their advantage but sometimes the rules are damn stupid.

At last weekend's fourth round of the New Zealand MotorSport Premier Race Championships, leading BNT V8 driver John McIntyre unfortunately totalled his car on the first lap of the first race.

The rain had arrived with vengeance and as he lead the field through the last corner before the start-finish straight, the once damp line on newly sealed tarmac had turned in a small pond of standing water.

Needless to say McIntyre's car aquaplaned out of control through the water spearing of the track to be planted into the tyre wall. Very bad luck - but that's racing. But for the series leader, who was looking to extend his point's haul over rival Craig Baird, the day had come to an end.

But not so. Because the rules don't actually say you can't go and find a whole new car and go racing again, by default means you can go and find a whole new car and go racing again.

This does my head in from a moral point of view - again, this has nothing to do with McIntyre or the event director. If there's a loophole, there's a loophole.

Baird, I think, summed it up when he said being able to get a new car after you wrote yours off was a load of bollocks. And I agree. If you write your car off, for whatever reason, and others don't, from a purist's point of view you shouldn't really be allowed to go and get another toy out of the box.

If you think about it, some guy at the back of the grid who has no chance of winning a championship could gift his car to a potential series winner who'd totalled his machine earlier in the weekend. Damn, that happened in the past in another class...

I spoke to the event director (in old school language, the clerk of the course) from the weekend's racing and he said in the interest of motorsport, the morality of it, and the principle of racing, he wasn't overly comfortable with what happened - only from a personal point of view as technically it was all kosher. But his job is to make sure the rules are followed and as McIntyre's team had asked permission to race another car within 30 minutes of the next event - so be it.

As McIntyre's team had stayed within the letter of the law, possibly not the spirit, he had no recourse but to allow McIntyre to utilise Haydn MacKenzie's hot lap car. McIntyre did get pinged for an engine change though, and had to start at the back of the grid for the next race.

As bad as I feel for McIntyre and his crappy weekend, he only dropped to third in the championship - not bad when you consider he scored nil points over the weekend. He's still got two more rounds (six races) to have a tilt at his grabbing his third NZV8 title.

On reflection, the entire weekend's racing was bizarre. Clark Proctor was denied a win in the first race due to a transponder hiccup, Porsche GT3 driver Matt Halliday had his steering wheel stolen only for it to be found later in a ditch, MacKenzie in the meantime had lent the steering wheel from his spare car to Halliday. When MacKenzie returned to his pit area after the last race someone had stolen his jacket and other personal items.

To round the weekend out, young TRS driver Mitch Evans' naïve overtaking attempt on Earl Bamber on the last lap cost him a race finish. He lost control under brakes and smacked rather heavily into the tyre wall destroying most of the car. The race was red flagged but Evans was credited with finishing second despite not crossing the finishing line due to an act of folly.

I know fortune favours the brave, but if you royally mess up you shouldn't be rewarded.

- Eric Thompson