With a busy festive season of speedway action behind us,
attention in the lower South Island now turns to car racing
on tarmac and the fast-looming prospect of extreme Nitro
Circus action at Carisbrook.
It has been a mixed initiation year into the NZV8s series for
Dunedin's John Whelan but he is hoping to salvage the
2009/2010 rookie title during the final round at the Taupo
Motorsport Park this weekend.
In a shortened contest punctuated by uniquely Australian
dramas, Allan Dippie's team bettered its qualifying position
by 21 places to finish 13th overall in the Bathurst 12-hour
race at the weekend.
Spectators turn up at a track largely unaware of the months,
days and hours that go into a driver being race-ready.
Catherine Pattison learns from Dunedin's NZ V8 entrant John
Whelan exactly what happens before and during an event.
Queenstown's Grant Aitken cited getting on to preparing
his Mitsubishi Evo 9 earlier and testing prior to competing,
as reasons for his dominance of the Production racing class.
