Motorsport: Beauty queen smitten by single-seater race fever

By BOB PEARCE

Racing overalls and a crash helmet hardly cut it on the catwalks, but Coralie Warburton couldn't care less.

The 20-year-old Auckland law student, who was crowned Miss World New Zealand last September, has got the motor-racing bug.

She tuned up with a couple of races in the Ford Ka celebrity series and this weekend gets serious in a single-seater Formula Ford at Taupo.

Warburton will drive in the Formula Ford Festival in one of the most competititive classes on the motorsport register.

She had her first drive in the car, owned by Hamiltonian Steve Richards, at Taupo last Sunday.

"It was amazing," she said. "I've never gone so fast. It was good there was no one else there because I spun out four times.

"But that was good. It allowed me to establish the limits before driving among other cars."

A driver on the roads since she was 15, Warburton hopes, if all goes well, to gain more experience in Formula Fords next season.

Ranged against her at Taupo will be 20 men, ranging from 58-year-old Kenny Smith to 13-year-old Chris Pither, who will also be making his debut in the class after a season in Formula First.

The two-day meeting, organised by the New Zealand Racing Drivers' Club, will also feature the Winter Cup for touring cars and big fields of HQ Holdens.

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A few centimetres of exhaust pipe cost Aucklander Matt Halliday the lead in the Australian Formula Holden championship, but it has fired him with the determination to display his talents to a wider audience.

The 20-year-old from Mt Roskill has been very much the Third Man behind Scott Dixon and Simon Wills in the ranks of outstanding young Kiwi single-seater drivers.

But when he won the second Formula Holden race at Adelaide recently, he took the lead in a championship which has fostered the careers of Dixon, Wills, Greg Murphy and Aussies Jason Bright and Mark Skaife.

Then it all turned sour when the few centimetres added to his exhaust to avert a noise regulation problem was deemed illegal and he was disqualified.

"It was all political," Halliday said. "There was no performance advantage and nobody had protested when I came second in the first race.

"But when you win, you become a target. Everyone knew I'd won fair and square."

Halliday has been fired up by the setback, and with five more rounds in the championship, is determined to make his mark.

"I think you benefit from having to do it the hard way. We've had rough times and it's always been a struggle to find sponsorship. But we're getting there."

Challenge Recruitment has helped him in Australia and now Auckland company Empower is involved in his future plans.

Halliday has always enjoyed family support. His dad, Don, raced a variety of saloon cars in the heydays of the sport and his uncle, Garry Croft, was a frontrunner in Formula Ford.

Matt did eight years of karting, beating and being beaten by Dixon, before moving into Formula Fords.

He has been one of Wills' closest pursuers since moving to Formula Holden and was third in last year's New Zealand Grand Prix behind Wills and Dixon.

Last week he completed a successful test with Mark Larkham's V8 Supercar team with an eye on a drive later in the year.

But his focus is on single-seaters and the chance to follow Dixon to the United States. He has begun to make contacts and hopes to have a test drive before the end of the season.

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Paul Radisich has high hopes of winning the V8 Supercar round at Hidden Valley, Darwin, this weekend after notching his first race win at Adelaide in the last round.

Helping his cause will be the parity adjustment which will see all the Holden Commodores having 100mm shaved off their undertrays, a move designed to make the Ford Falcons more competitive.

"The reality is that our Fords have been at a disadvantage from the start of the season and this will only even things up," the Kiwi driver said.

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The death of Adam Petty in a practice accident has seen Nascar's first four-generation driving dynasty reduced to two in the space of a few weeks.

His great-grandfather, Lee, died three days after Adam made his debut at Texas Motor Speedway this season.

In June 1949, Lee Petty drove the family Buick Roadmaster from Level Cross, North Carolina, to Charlotte to finish 17th in the inaugural Nascar race. His crewmen were 11-year-old Richard and 10-year-old Maurice.

Lee went on to win the Nascar points championship in 1954, 1958 and 1959. Son Richard won 200 races and grandson Kyle, Adam's father, has been on the circuit for 22 years.