Motorsport: Enduro race pace great leveller

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This year's top motor racing endurance event, the Le Mans 24-Hour, had its annual bash last weekend and, as always, the crowds flocked to the Circuit de la Sarthe to watch some great racing.

New Zealand is getting it's own 24-hour endurance event this year but ours is being split into two 12-hour races to be held at the Taupo Motorsport Park on July 16 and 17 and Hampton Downs on August 12 and 13.

The popularity of endurance motor racing can be put down to drivers having to maintain race pace for the entire event and is a great leveller.

Drivers have the opportunity to go head-to-head with everyone on the grid regardless of pace, budget or engine size. It really is about the last man standing, or in this case, the engine running.

These two races will be the first time New Zealand will see a genuine long-distance race and the event is sponsored by VIP Petfoods, which will see company owner Tony Quinn entering. His team is bringing a Porsche 997 GT3 RSR endurance car from Australia.

Driven caught up with Quinn in Australia and asked:

I hear you lived in New Zealand for awhile, so can we claim you as one as ours?

Quinn: I lived in New Zealand and had a Kiwi passport for awhile between 1984 and 1994. I loved it. I really enjoyed the Kiwis, they're a real bunch of "can-do" people and we still have a property in Queenstown we visit a lot.

You run a successful business so how did you get into motorsport?

Quinn: I used to race Formula Fords in Scotland when I was a young fella but I soon gave it away and came to Australia, and then went to New Zealand and back to Australia. Someone then suggested that I did the Targa Rally in Tasmania, which I did and loved it. I got back into motorsport and have had a great time since.

From what we hear, you're bringing out a rather special race car.

Quinn: The car we're bringing out is a 997 RSR and it has a great history. It raced at the Nurburgring where it came ninth and also won the Dubai 24 Hour race in 2007. It falls outside the Porsche Cup regs so it's been sitting around for awhile not doing anything. And so I decided to send it to New Zealand to compete in the two 12-hour races.

Twelve hours is a long time to race. Who's your co-driver?

Quinn: My young son, Clark, is pretty useful and he'll be driving with me at Taupo and Hampton Downs. He's leading the Australian GT championship at the moment. I always remember Mario Andretti saying that "it's one of life's pleasures to drive with your son".

Any cunning plans for getting a race win?

Quinn: We might have a slight disadvantage, as the Porsche may not be quite as quick as some of the other cars. If it's going to be cold and wet, the local boys will have a fair old advantage, as we don't get a lot of wet weather racing in Australia. Regardless of what happens we're very used to doing endurance racing and we know it's not the fastest car in qualifying that counts, it's a case of around and around for as long as you can, spending the least amount of time you can in the pits and we have a keen good, albeit amateur pit crew, who know the stops are important. You have to be as smooth as you can and stay out of trouble.

Driven hears you have a few other toys tucked away in the garage.

Quinn: We've got a fair old stable of about 10 race cars all up. Each one of them does a different job, as it's not a case of one car fits all races and you need something different for the different series we compete in. We've even got a bloody ex-Dakar Pajero V8 sequential thing that does the Safari rally. I've got things like a historic Ralt RT4 that I love driving as well as a couple of Nissan GTRs for the rallies, a Mitsubishi Evo nine, a couple of Porsches, an Aston Martin that is probably my favourite car and a Mosler GT3 car.

How has motorsport helped your company?

Quinn: We decided to use motorsport as part of our branding exercise and, to be perfectly honest, it's worked very, very well. And to the point where VIP Petfoods is almost a household name. We've sponsored V8 Supercars, Kiwi driver Crag Baird in the Carrera Cup series and others and been very successful at it and with that you get a lot of exposure.

If you want to achieve personal satisfaction you do it for yourself, but if you want to achieve success for the business as a branding tool you've go to have a successful driver at the front of the field.

The organisers, while using the obligatory schedule A performance car formula, have worked to include New Zealand and Australian production cars, which have always run under different articles. By creating a new showroom class, this embraces many of the common transtasman interpretations. For the first time, the New Zealand showroom class will see SS V8 Commodores and GT Falcons competing against WRX or EVOs with V8 Utes thrown into the mix. Diesel-turbo engines have not been penalised for having turbos either, racing as they do in Europe against normally aspirated petrol engines of the same capacity.

* For more information visit www.endurance.org.nz for full event information and competitor entry details or contact the series secretary Alan Barnes on info@endurance.org.nz or 027 4433407.