Three Masterton racing drivers attended the invite-only birthday celebrations of motorsport legend Rod Millen, where they joined other national and international racecar drivers to mark his 62nd birthday at the Leadfoot festival.
Mr Millen invited more than 100 former racecar drivers, friends and car enthusiasts to join him as hemarked his birthday in style. Guests were invited to test their cars at his purpose-built Hahei ranch on the Coromandel Peninsula.
The three Masterton drivers were Richard Mason, Bevan Wright and Roger Brader.
Mr Millen began racing in the New Zealand Rally Championship and was subsequently crowned champion in 1975, 1976, and 1977 and is synonymous with motor racing in New Zealand.
In the late '70s he moved to the United States to compete in the rally circuit, winning the North American Race and Rally Championship in 1979. He also competed in several World Rally Championship events from 1977 to 1992.
Mr Mason is a four-time NZ Rally Champion, and drove a 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STi at the invite-only event, which he used for three seasons of the NZ Rally Championships. He said it was quite an achievement that three of the drivers invited from across the country and overseas hailed from Masterton. "Out of 150 drivers to have three from Masterton was pretty good. There was probably 20 or 30 drivers who attended from overseas."
He said the events of the weekend were "special". "Rod Millen put on a pretty crazy show, there were lots of significant vehicles and particularly good drivers and everyone was racing. He had his own driveway set up with a whole pile of corners [recreated] which were significant with his racing career from tracks around the world, which was quite unusual."
The main event during the weekend was a hill climb.
Bevan Wright has been a competitor in motorsport for 25 years, competing in street sprints, hill climbs and circuit racing. He said it was the best racing car event he had attended.
Mr Brader has been racing since the '70s when he raced Wayne Fuller's Escort V8 in the OSCA series. His best result was victory in the Hawke's Bay rally.
