Offroad racers ready for toughest test

Whakatane racer Clive Thornton is preparing to defend his 2008 victory in the Woodhill 100, the toughest one-day endurance race in New Zealand motorsport.

In 2008, Thornton drove his Australian-built Southern Cross race car to victory after multiple champions Ian Foster and Tony McCall both fell victim to mechanical failures and off-track excursions.

This year, with a further twelve months of car development and race time, Thornton is looking forward to the punishing race.

“The car’s had a comprehensive going-over and I’m looking forward to getting back into the forest. There is no event quite like the Woodhill, and after winning last year I just couldn’t even consider not coming back to defend my title,” he said.
Ian Foster and Tony McCall will be absent from this year’s event, both having sold their cars to teams in the South Island. Foster has won this event six times; McCall has five titles to his name.

The sport of offroad racing was founded on cars using the tough and simple Volkswagen flat four “boxer” engine, a format both Foster and McCall’s cars used to great effect. The boxer engine has won more Woodhills than any other format – including Foster’s six wins and McCall’s five - but last year’s win for Clive Thornton in his GM V6-powered car may have marked a turning point in the sport this year the title is likely to fall to Japanese or Australian power and could go to Thornton or equally to a class one or three rival.
Thornton says his strongest threats may be Aucklander Rob Ryan, and Beachlands driver Neville Smith. Ryan ran in the top three for most of last year’s race in his Ryan Honda VTEC; Smith was one of the founders of the Cougar race car brand and has run in the top three at Woodhill in previous years. His car is also Honda powered, but has the benefit of a turbocharger, intercooler and rally-style “anti-lag” technology.

“Rob’s car is a single-seater, mine is a two seater; he builds his own frames and has designed his cars specifically for New Zealand race conditions, but the Southern Cross is immensely tough and we’ve done some work to squeeze more power of the engine so it will be interesting, for sure,” Thornton said.
Meanwhile Smith’s high-tech single-seater has what may be the most powerful four cylinder engine package in the sport thanks to an intercooled turbocharger set-up that can be “dialled” to produce anywhere between 180 and 300 kW (250 and 400 bhp).
Local (west Auckland) racers heading for the forest this weekend include Rick and Rene Sciarone, both in Super 1600 cars this year; and Albany’s Richard Crabb in his distinctive mid-engined Super 1600 car. Other in the class are Whakatane’s Malcolm Langley in his Bakersfield racing Toyota single-seater and Mt Albert fast man Alan Butler in a Cougar Evo Toyota.
In the one-make Challenger VW class Troy Tufnell and Shawn Dickins will renew their long-standing on-track rivalry and both could take podium positions in their light VW powered cars.
The Asset Finance Woodhill 100 is New Zealand’s oldest and hardest offroad race. Now in its 29th year, it has been held on the sand tracks and fast logging roads of Woodhill Forest since the early 1980s and teams rate it their greatest challenge in any competition year.

The course switches from 200 km/h logging “highways” to sandy, bumpy one-lane tracks under the pine trees almost without warning; salt spray drifts across the fastest sections from the nearby beach.

It has long been recognised as the hardest race in the sport to win outright, and many drivers say simply reaching the finish of the race is noteworthy when attrition rates customarily run well above 50 per cent.

Organiser Donn Attwood says this year’s course will be tough but fast, and some of the bumpier sand tracks plotted into the course last year have been removed or improved.
“There’s one section under the trees that gave a lot of guys a good shaking last year, very slow and rough in deep sand. This year it’s been opened up wide and flattened out so we are expecting lap times to reflect the faster nature of the course.”

Attwood says to finish the Woodhill, drivers need to think strategically.

“If you go out to bust something, the Woodhill will do that for you; if you go out to run at a fast pace and drive the rough sensibly then you are a fair way toward a result.”
The course this year’s SFL Woodhill 100 will be slightly different from 2008, covering 200-220km with lap distances of 35km.

“We’ve put some great new roads into this year’s track, though the classic start-finish jump and the things that make the Woodhill so awesome have definitely been kept. It’s the sport’s oldest and most iconic race, after all. Why mess with success?”

Attwood says with the sport currently the strongest it has been in two decades, the Woodhill is expected to attract a quality entry from throughout the North Island. This year’s format is expected to once more draw a big crowd of spectators.
“Shorter laps mean more chances to see the cars racing. Couple this with the chance to get close to the action as the best race drivers in the sport tackle this spectacular course and you have some great viewing for families and hard-out motorsport fans alike. Even though it’s tucked away in the north-west, this race always attracts 1,000 or more spectators for an awesome day’s race-watching.”

All forest access is from the same point at Trig Road northwest of Helensville.

Scrutineering for the 2009 Asset Finance Woodhill 100 will be held Saturday 30 May at Pinepac in Kumeu, giving west coast locals a chance to see the cars before the racing begins on Sunday; qualifying sprints and the race start will be at the start-finish area the following morning. Sprints start at 8.30 am and finish at 9.30 am; driver’s briefing is at 10.00 am and race start is 11.00 am.

Gate admission is $10 per adult, with children under 15 free.

Organisers expect the winning car to take slightly more than two hours to complete the race distance and cross the finish line.

“We don’t know exactly what time the race will end this year because the new sections will affect overall lap times, but the leaders have averaged 100 km/h or more in the past – so 200km in the forest may well take less than two hours to complete!”
-End-
Issued on behalf of the 2009 Woodhill 100 by Veritas Communications Limited.

25 years of the toughest race in New Zealand:

The Woodhill 100 winners
1981 Daryll Carson

1982 Emil Versalko

1983 Daryll Carson

1984 Nigel Barton

1985 Ian Foster

1986 Emil Versalko

1987 Lindsay Pointon

1988 Des Warrington

1989 Ian Foster

1990 Ian Foster

1991 Ian Foster

1992 Ian Foster

1993 Trevor Hackett

1994 Emil Versalko

1995 Daynom Templeman

1996 Mike Cameron

1997 Daynom Templeman

1998 Ian Foster

1999 Tony McCall

2000 Grant Ferguson

2001 Trevor Hackett

2002 Lindsay Pointon

2003 Clim Lammers

2004 Tony McCall

2005 Tony McCall

2006 Tony McCall

2007 Tony McCall

2008 Clive Thornton

2009 - ?

Notes for media:

The image accompanying this media release is of Clive Thornton, defending Woodhill 100 champion. It was shot at the first round of the 2009 Asset Finance New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship and is right-free for editorial use
It is likely your publication’s coverage area is home to one or more of the top entries in this race. Contact details for top entrants are available by email request; as are action images from previous races. Please email mark.baker@ihug.co.nz
Race information is on the sport’s web site, www.oranz.co.nz and there are downloadable maps guiding spectators and media to the race venue
Race results and images will be released on the afternoon of Sunday May 31 at the conclusion of the race.