Richard Driver Nz
Welcome to the Castrol BMW Race Driver Series. Harker takes hour long race win from Oxton. Press release: Castrol BMW Race Driver Series – endurance round 1.
Richard Pearse: self-taught inventor, prophetic designer, trail blazing aviator, and eccentric visionary, a modern-day Icarus from down under who, against incredible.
Harker takes hour long race win from Oxton.
Press release: Castrol BMW Race Driver Series – endurance round 1, 13 December 2015.
For immediate release: Monday 14 December 2015.
E30 PHOTOS HERE
OPEN PHOTOS HERE
Papakura s Reid Harker took victory at Sunday s Hampton Downs 1 hour BMW Endurance Race, beating the two-driver teams of Tony Easton/Carruthers and father son Richard/David Oxton.
The first of two rounds in the Castrol BMW Race Driver Endurance Series, this one-day event had an eight-lap preliminary race that led into a 1 hour-long endurance event for both the E30 and Open Class category cars.
A feature of the 1 hour race is to allow other drivers to share in the results, an opportunity Richard Oxton offered to four-time New Zealand Gold Star winning driver David Oxton.
Oxton senior carved a star-studded motor racing career from the late 1960 s through to the mid-80 s, competing mainly in high-horsepower open-wheel cars. Along with the four Gold Star titles, he was a regular in a Tasman Series that featured many of the world s Formula One drivers of the day – including the likes of Chris Amon, Denny Hulme and Bruce McLaren.
The newly established endurance aspect to the Castrol BMW Race Driver Series includes a compulsory driver change pit stop where single driver cars must exit the vehicle, run around the car, and get back in.
During the one hour race we had a 20 minute window to pit for the driver change – and as I was two/three seconds a lap slower I said to Richard if you want to win the race I should do the minimum laps.
As we didn t have any safety car breaks Richard carried on for 35 – 40 minutes and I did the last bit, added Oxton.
Richard handed over to me while in the lead, and Reid Harker just blew past me. I hung on battling for second, and then for third in the end.
I m absolutely in admiration of these young drivers and was just lucky to jump into a car that was in the lead and not lose too many places.
He Richard could have won it on his own, that s what young Reid Harker did. Matt Griffen and the Hodgson boys are, well, I m in awe of them all to tell you the truth. When I see how good those boys are, and the way they drive those cars, I will never criticise anyone who is three seconds off the pace because I know what it takes to do it.
In the world of fathers and sons it is pretty neat to be able to do these things. It was more about wow aren t we lucky to be able to do it – and we did, said Oxton of the experience.
Oxton last raced competitively in 1985 where he drove the second Holden Commodore of Peter Brock s team at the Wellington street race.
While the morning s eight-lap race was won by Mark Crompton, third placed Reid Harker who finished behind Richard Oxton showed the benefit of consistent lap times to win the 1 hour long race with a margin of 39sec over the Carruthers/Easton E30 BMW.
In the Open Class category a total of 20 cars started the day.
Two qualifying sessions catering for cars with multiple drivers saw Tauranga s Bob Sievwright set fastest time in his M3.
Matakana s Warwick Mortimer had the faster paced car during the late morning 8 lap race to take the win over Sievwright by a margin of 30seconds.
The afternoon s 1 hour race become a battle of strategy.
While Mortimer had the faster car, a slick and early pit stop by Tauranga based Fraser during the driver change had him in and out of the car with enough of a time benefit to return to racing in third position overall.
As the remaining cars completed their stops Fraser moved to the front and stayed ahead of Mortimer and Sievwright from just after the half-way mark right through to the end of the race.
Driving his new E36 M3 in the series for the first time Fraser said the 1 hour race was far the more interesting: Since I have been doing 1 hour races I m sold on the principle. It s an opportunity to get a top result by not having the fastest car as race tactics come in to it.
It s another whole experience to racing compared to sprint events, you ve got the elements of strategy, plus racing in traffic, so there is a lot more action and this tests your ability to get past other cars.
However it was his pit stop strategy he believes, which netted him an additional 30 seconds of race time, that saw him finish at the head of the field.
We timed our pit strategy alongside the deployment of the Safety Car just as the pits were about to open at the 20 minute mark so I knew it would be pretty tight added Fraser, a business accounting strategic planner.
It was then a matter of getting the timing right. As the Safety Car crossed the start/finish line my team guy counted down the seconds over the radio. By the time we approached the pit entrance we were just seconds past that 20 minute mark, while the rest of the field continued behind the Safety Car.
Fraser got to the flag just 7.292 seconds ahead of second placed Mortimer, the only two cars to finish on the lead lap, after Sievwright retired just after the 29th lap leaving Mortimer as the prime challenger.
Neville Findlay finished third while the Baigent/Lucas car were the top two-driver team, finishing fourth overall.
The second and final round for the Endurance Series title will be held 8th May 2016 – back at Hampton Downs.
The third of the Castrol BMW Race Driver Series sprint rounds resumes 16th January at the Taupo race circuit.
Supporters of the series and scholarship car include BMW New Zealand, Castrol, Toyo tyres, Koni shocks/King Springs, Stocks, P and S Autocentre, Tracktime and Classic Car Cover.
Many thanks to all our sponsors CASTROL, TOYO, KONI, King Springs and BMW Group NZ for their help and support making our series happen.
Final Results from the last Round 6 – The Legends Of Speed at Hampton Downs are now published for all classes and can be seen HERE.
Season-To-Date results including the last round, Round 6 – Festival of Speed are up in the results section, including drops so you can see how things ended up across all the classes for the 2014-15 season.
Click here for the: Series Promo Video
This website is being updated regularly so check back for anything you need to know to get your rubber on the road.
Driver Richard and co-driver Sara Mason. Features latest news, driver and crew profiles, video clips, images and contact details.
Richard Prosser was born in West Auckland in 1967 and grew up in the Waikato, attending Hauraki Plains College. He moved to Central Otago in 1994 and now lives.
With your own private driver guide NZ Tour Guide Services are your people on the ground, run by Richard and Heather Gallagher. Both born and bred fifth generation.
Richard Driver is the Managing Director of Greenstone TV. Richard has over twenty-five years experience across a diverse range of roles in the industry. Starting on-air at TVNZ as the host of its flagship music show Radio With Pictures.
He quickly became an adept producer and director which led to the beginning of a successful career as both Managing Director and Executive Producer for New Zealand production companies Maxwell 1995-1997, Screentime NZ 1997-2001 Visionary 2001-2006 – a company he co-founded in 2001.
Richard was responsible for launching the Documentary Channel on New Zealand s Sky digital platform, which he later sold 2010 to the BBC. As a non-fiction content producer he has delivered programmes for New Zealand s TVNZ, TV3, Prime, Maori and C4 channels, Australia s Seven and Ten networks, BBC Worldwide Ireland s RTE broadcaster.
His music, youth and documentary programmes have featured at film TV festivals in Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand and have received numerous awards and nominations locally and internationally.
After three rounds of the BNT NZ Touring Cars Championship season done TOTAL Lubricants Nissan Altima driver Nick Ross looks forward to the Christmas break.
New Zealand rally hero and Hyundai Motorsport driver Hayden Paddon has been appointed the official ambassador for Rally New Zealand as the local organising.
