The South Island endurance series blasts into life this weekend and brings with it a flurry of firsts for many of the Otago and Southland competitors.
Arguably the most exciting premiere is Mataura's Inky Tulloch debuting the new Camaro GT3 he has imported from Germany.
It arrived in the nick of time this week, so that Tulloch and three-hour series driving partner Grant Aitken, of Queenstown, could perform a few acquaintance laps with the 478kW, 7.9-litre V8 Camaro at Teretonga Park, in Invercargill, before Saturday's race meeting there.
Dunedin's Allan Dippie will celebrate the series being awarded New Zealand endurance championship status for 2014 by committing to both the one-hour and three-hour races at this opening round.
Dippie joked that he would use the one-hour race ''to warm me up'', contesting it in a Ford Focus RS500.
A seasoned competitor in the three-hour series, he will return to it with co-driver and co-owner of their Porsche 997 GT3 Cup S, Scott O'Donnell, of Invercargill.
The pair finished second last year and would like to move up a place, Dippie said.
''The trouble is the goalposts keep moving out every year.''
Series secretary Chris Dunn agreed and said the fastest endurance cars in New Zealand were heading to the Teretonga opener and every three-hour series champion since 2006, except one, was returning for the race.
The battle for outright honours is likely to come from the exotic GT class dominated by the Porsche marque.
Ten of the German machines are set to take on the Ferrari F430 driven by 2012-13 New Zealand endurance champion Jono Lester and Robin Gray.
He can expect stiff compeition from multiple South Island series champion Paul Kelly, who has Porsche superstar Craig Baird as his 2014 team-mate.
Their new weapon will be Kelly's ex-Australian Carrera Cup car, as he sets his sights on a fourth consecutive title.
With the factory-built race in the GT class, class 1 (3501cc +) is dominated by the traditional New Zealand hybrids.
Among them will be Alexandra's Bruce Davidson and Dave Garden in their homebuilt Corvette C6R.
It will be their first time racing with a new sequential gearbox and they were raring to get some competitive kilometres under their belts, Davidson said.
Otago entries in the combined class 3 and 4 (0-2000cc) include the 2014 class-winning Honda Civic R of Dunedin's Paul Coghill and co-driver Kynan Yu, of Cromwell.
They will be up against the ex-world touring car championship (WTCC) BMW 320i of Dunedin brothers Arron and Stu Black, who will drop back to this lower cubic capacity (cc) class after replacing the unreliable three-litre engine in favour of the car's original two-litre WTCC powerplant.
The ever-dependable Peugeot 106 of Dunedin's Ken Sinclair and Dennis Ham will continue to keep everyone in the class honest through reliability if not speed.
Over in the one-hour series, it will be the first time Dunedin's Alyssa Clapperton races her new Holden Commodore.
Last year, she paired up with her father, Ian, in the three-hour series but this season she is going it alone.
In class 1, Brian Scott's Corvette C5 has undergone significant upgrades over the off-season but also look out for fellow Dunedin racer Chris Henderson (Toyota AE86 V8), who will be competitive with a season under his belt in his new car.
Among the 15 cars registered for class 2 (2001cc-3500cc) are the BMW M3 of Dunedin's Warren Good and Toyota AE86 of Hawea's Andy Giles.
Class 3 and 4 (0-2000cc) also has a strong field of entries with Stu Black likely to be the pace-setter in the fast but fragile Toyota Starlet.
After this weekend's round at Teretonga, the series moves to Mike Pero Ruapuna, Christchurch, on October 4, before the final at Levels Raceway, Timaru, on October 18.
