Heat Treatments Limited Racing – the New Zealand team behind the world’s quickest Skyline GT-R – have rewritten the record books once again. At Willowbank Raceway in Queensland, Australia on Saturday, driver Reece McGregor pointed the HTL Racing BNR32 to a 7.455 at 193.27mph (311km/h) pass before going 7.412 at the same trap speed. It’s been exactly a year since the legendary GT-R set its last PB – that run was a 7.531 at 185.26mph (298.14km/h) at the very same Willowbank Sportsman pre-FUCHS Winternationals meet – so cracking into the 7.40s (and very nearly the 7.30s!) is a great accomplishment. We can’t wait to see what the team can do at the 2013 Winternats in a few weeks time! In the meantime, check out some video of the 7.45 and 7.41 passes from the guys at DragImportMedia.
I’ve always been fascinated with the love our antipodean friends seem to have for the rotary engine. It’s not so much a passing interest, oh no, they’ve developed quite the affliction with the buzzing Wankel. Our first trip to Australia in 2010 is where we got our initial exposure of all things rotary, when we [...]
Welcome back to my garage. I’m happy to report that over the past month a whole lot has happened and progress with Project Z is on a roll. You might be looking at this photo and thinking I’ve gone mad, but don’t worry – the G-nose will be back soon enough. While the car has [...]
Motorsport is addictive. I probably don’t need to tell you that, but of all the codes out there I’m not sure than any fuel the fire of obsession quite like drag racing does. In a sport where success is often measured in one-hundredths of a second or less, that’s understandable of course. Consistency is one thing, [...]
When Mad Mike Whiddett gets behind the wheel of one his drift cars there are a few you things you can be guaranteed of. Big noise, big smoke and big angle are part and parcel of the Kiwi drifter’s repertoire; and recently he brought them all to a special video project named Red Bull Conquer The Crown. Filmed on the iconic Crown Range Road in Queenstown near the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island, the project presented a once in a lifetime chance for Mike to go maximum attack on the closed 10.47-kilometre (6.5-mile) stretch of tarmac in his 515hp quad-rotor MADBUL RX-7 – and he didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. Turn up your speakers and press play to witness one of Speedhunters’ own hit the vertical switchback section; find the limiter in sixth gear on the high-speed plateau; and slide through some classic touge-style corners on the final run to the 1.08-kilometre high summit. Epic stuff!
Getting a 3700lb (1675kg) Nissan Skyline GT-R down the strip in eight and a half seconds flat on its very first outing since an intensive, yet short lead build, is not any way, shape or form an easy proposition. But behind the wheel of MGAWOT II, New Zealand-based but internationally-renowned Nissan RB-series engine builder Robbie [...]
When it comes to rotary tuning, the exploits of two countries at the bottom of the world need little introduction. For as long as I can remember the Australasian region has been home to some of the fastest, loudest, wildest and most innovative rotary-powered vehicles on the face of the planet, and there are no [...]
There’s a saying, ‘You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family’. I guess this would be a good way to describe how I feel about all of the cars that I’ve owned. Perhaps it’s because of the series of events that led me to owning one after the other and the eventual [...]
When I got the memo asking whether I could start putting together a project story for the site every month, I got pretty excited. Why? Because many years ago (at least six or seven at a guess) I took a chance on a rather sorry-looking ’83 AE86 hatch. The Toyota had been exported from Japan [...]
As Australia’s premier championship race series, V8 Supercars has a huge following down under, and if you’ve experienced it in the flesh I’m sure you’ll know why. The category might be far removed from the production-based racing and the exclusive GM Holden versus Ford rivalry it was forged upon, but to me it’s no less [...]
For a couple of countries at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, Australia and New Zealand are pretty lucky when it comes to motorsport. Beside annual appearances from F1 and the WRC, the Australasian region is home to one of the best touring car championship series anywhere in the world. It’s called the V8 Supercars [...]
Aside from the spectacular environment it’s built around and the atmosphere abuzz within it, the beauty of the Leadfoot Festival lies with the machinery. I’ve been to a lot of car shows and motorsport events during my lifetime thus far, but when you’re talking sheer diversity, nothing has come close to the event created by [...]
It’s not often I get nervous when I’m thrown the keys to someone else’s car, but then again the ’56 Cadillac I just buckled up in certainly isn’t your average ride – or at least the average when it comes to cars that I’m accustomed to driving. Piloting, or in this case ‘captaining’, a left-hand-drive [...]
My name is Peter Kelly and I’m the editor of New Zealand Performance Car magazine. With Speedhunters’ America theme happening, I was asked by the team to write a guest post, no doubt due to my perceived conflict of occupation – running a staunchly import-only magazine, and choice of vehicle – a 1967 Fastback Chevrolet [...]
Any day I get to pack up my gear and go Speedhunting is a good day, but ever since this time last year I’ve been counting down the days to the next Leadfoot Festival. The weekend just passed, edition 2013 went down in style on Rod Millen’s 1-mile long driveway. Although he made a name [...]
