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Greetings from Taupo, New Zealand
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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Taupo Motorsports Park – Lifetime Track #1,144
Today’s trip was special for several reasons. We never would have seen this track without the heads up from Colin Smith, sportswriter for the Bay of Plenty Times. Today’s program was not one of their major events. Many thanks Colin! The track was prepping for an A1GP event in two weeks. Additionally this was Carol’s 300th lifetime track to see. That made it special. Finally, the “unexpected” track made up for a rainout earlier in the trip. That got us back on track for seeing the original planned number of NZ tracks – 12. We could see forever with this panoramic view of the New Zealand countryside. Maybe someone from New Zealand can explain this billboard to me. Remember, we were visiting during New Zealand’s summer! The country has a little bit of everything. There is no part of New Zealand more than 130km from the ocean. We have Colin Smith, sportswriter for the Bay of Plenty Times to thank for us getting to this track. This was our first racing view of the Taupo Motorsports Track. At the time we didn’t know it, but we were seeing a practice session. We saw all kinds of exotic racing machinery today at Taupo. How often do you see a right side steer 1956 Chevy? This is the view of the paddock area at the Taupo Motorsports Park. These karts were the first race of the afternoon. Of course, you know that flat karts like these do not count in trackchasing. Please don’t complain to me about this rule. I didn’t have anything to do with the establishment of trackchaser rules that ban these machines. The grandstands located all over the track were still being constructed for the big grand prix race to be held in two weeks. We could see several areas of the track from a close-up position. The entire course was relatively flat. There was a unique spectator view area that allowed me to get this shot while the cars raced down the front straight. This was the spot where I took the photo of the cars racing down the front straight. This may have been the most beautiful racing machine I saw during the entire trip. The muscle car division is about ready to take to the track for their racing event. Today’s racing offered cars of all shapes and sizes. GREETINGS FROM PALMERSTON NORTH, NEW ZEALAND (THAT’S WHERE THE DAY BEGAN) SPECIAL NOTICE! I just wanted to alert all of my Trackchaser Report readers to an important point regarding the timing of when you receive these reports. I have a few guidelines that I will stick too. First, I will maintain my policy of never sending more than one Trackchaser Report email per day, except in the most unusual of circumstances. I will always send the TRs in the chronological order in which the tracks were seen. There may be times, like the New Zealand trip, when a few days pass before I send out my reports. Often this will be caused by a lack of suitable email facilities or simply because I don’t have time to get the reports out as quickly as I would like. You can always scroll to the bottom of the Trackchaser Report to see the exact date when I visited the track. Finally, I will continue to offer as many subject headings as possible, just as a newspaper does. This way, if you don’t have time to read the entire report, you can skip to those areas that you find most entertaining. This is the FIFTH AND FINAL report in a multi-part series that will detail our 17-day trackchasing and touring adventure to New Zealand and French Polynesia. The format of this Trackchaser Report will differ from those you have been reading all season. Our activities will be listed chronologically by day and divided into “Trackchasing” and “Tourist” categories. You will get a glimpse into how another family approaches and takes a long and exotic trip like this. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures, until you and your family head out on your next tour of the world. Warning: If you do not want to experience the feeling of “being there” I recommend that you not read the descriptions of what went on or view the pictures of what was seen. I would not want any future visits to these faraway parts to be ruined by the realism you are about ready to experience in words and pictures. If you are receiving this Trackchaser Report via email, you can view the pictures at www.ranlayracing.com. Part V Saturday, January 6, 2007 TOURIST ACTIVITY Carol ended the day with 301 career tracks. Forty-five of those tracks have been seen outside the United States. That means that nearly one track in every six she sees is located in a foreign country. There is no other United States based trackchaser who comes anywhere close to this total. I only see about one track in eleven outside of the United States. The best thing about trackchasing outside of the United States is that it gives us the opportunity to experience other cultures. We also get to see some really beautiful and unusual sights. The track visits themselves take up about three hours a day. The rest of the time is spent exploring. That’s what we did in New Zealand. It’s a beautiful country. If you have the chance to visit, do it. Following our two weeks in New Zealand we stopped over in Tahiti for two days. We didn’t see any tracks there…..because they don’t have any. We just relaxed. If you would like to read a little bit about what Tahiti was like check out the tourist activity section below for January 7-9, 2007. TRACKCHASING-AFTERNOON TAUPO MOTORSPORTS PARK, TAUPO, NEW ZEALAND – RANDY’S TRACK #1,144 & CAROL’S TRACK #300 – 1/6/07 The Taupo Motorsports Park was special for Carol. It marked here 300th lifetime track. Below is a listing of her other milestone tracks. SUMMARY OF “MILESTONE” TRACKCHASING ACHIEVEMENTS # 1 – Davenport Speedway (1/4M) – Davenport, Iowa – circa 1970 # 50 – North Wilkesboro Speedway, North Wilkesboro, North Carolina (Neil Bonnett – winner) – April 21, 1985 # 100 – Barford Raceway, Barford, England – August 6, 2000 # 150 – Southern Speedway, Hattiesburg, Mississippi – May 28, 2004 # 200 – Bay County Fair Derby Arena, Bay City, Michigan – August 10, 2005 #250 – Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, Nevada – June 3, 2006 #300 – Taupo Motorsports Park, Taupo, New Zealand – January 6, 2007 We never would have seen this track without the heads up from Colin Smith, sportswriter for the Bay of Plenty Times. Today’s program was not one of their major events. They were prepping for an A1GP event in two weeks. Here is what they had to say about the recent renovation of the track for that event. “That dream will become reality when Taupo’s $13 million racetrack hosts the A1GP on January 21. Mr Abbott said a chance meeting with an Australian motor racing promoter over coffee in 2002 set in motion the idea of transforming the Taupo Car Club track into a venue for international events and a motorsport-related business park. “It wasn’t a field of dreams where you build it and they would come – we had to go out there and sell the track to get people here. “But we knew Taupo would be a good venue because it was centrally located in the North Island within four hours drive of nearly two and half million people.” MIT Developments was formed to sell the idea to the Taupo District Council and Taupo Car Club. The council gave the concept the green light. “We were lucky there were some pretty ballsy councillors who were prepared to take the risk on something they didn’t know would fly or not,” Mr Abbott said. The council paid $2 million for farmland to extend the 1.4 kilometre track to 3.5 kilometres and granted resource consent. A $2 million government grant from the major regional initiative fund was available if the track could attract an international event. It was originally intended to hold the grand prix in 2008 but negotiations between MIT and Mr Giltrap brought the date forward a year. “If we had not got the A1GP this year we would have missed our chance and it would have gone to Asia instead,” Mr Abbott said. The franchise has contracted to host the event in Taupo for the next three years. “What we have now is something pretty close to what was planned back in 2002 – the concept of a motorsport business park together with an internationally rated racetrack with control tower and grandstand seating for 25,000 spectators. “When you think Shanghai spent nearly US$120 million (NZ$175 million) for a track, we have got a bargain for NZ$13 million.” Though the A1GP is the immediate focus, there were a few more rabbits to come out of the hat, including a MotoGP round, he said. Tickets to the A1GP on January 21 are still available from $175. Apart from the grandstand seating, the embankments can hold 3000 people. Corporate hospitality accounts for a further 5000, bringing the crowd capacity to 33,000. Corporate and embankment seats are sold out. The race will be telecast live around the world.” Maybe the newness of the operation contributed to the staff confusion that greeted us. We pulled into one area of the facility that appeared to be the paddock area. We were told to drive about two miles to the other end for admission. Once we reached that entrance, we paid our $20NZ admission and were directed to park. This put us in a paddock area that was home to flat go-karts only. This didn’t seem right. I tried to drive down a road that paralled the course, only to be told by a woman, who was probably exceeding her authority, that we could not go that way. I was getting a little frustrated. I didn’t know what the race program was for the day. I didn’t want to miss any countable racing due to some beaurocratic decision-making. I took matters into my own hands as I am want to do in sticky situations like this. Soon I was moving barrels out of the way and speeding down a dirt road while road-racing practice was going on. I instructed Carol not to make eye contact with anyone as we entered the road-racing paddock. We had made it. We discreetly got out of the Subaru Outback and tried to blend in immediately. We had arrived at 12:30 p.m. It was 68 degrees and the weather was fine, except that it was windy. They were still in the midst of constructing some of the grandstands. We found one that was mostly finished and plopped our backsides down in those comfortable rounded plastic bucket seats. The portable speakers and P.A. did a pretty good job of telling us what was going on. The first actual race was a flat go-kart event. Of course, flat go-karts don’t count in trackchasing so we tried to look away when they came into our view……just kidding. The first countable race was for SS2000s. They had 22 of them. The announcer told us that Ruapuna on the South Island was having a major road-racing event today. Before we left the South Island, we had seen a few road racing cars moving about the island and wondered what they might be up too. Carol liked the announcing. There were several trailers set up to sell food. We didn’t try any since we had just eaten before arriving at the track. This was your typical road racing facility. We had plenty of opportunity to explore the entire place. They have a ways to go, before it’s done. Holding an event for 25,000-30,000 people seems like a bit of a stretch at this point. We watched three races. Each race was about 30 minutes long. This track was special for two reasons. First, it was Carol’s 300th lifetime track. That’s a pretty special occasion. She is only 100 tracks short of the magic 400 now. What’s so magical about 400 tracks? At that point, she will become an eligible trackchaser voter. She has plenty of progressive ideas, so I can’t wait to the time she gains this eligibility. The second reason this track was so special is that it wasn’t part of our original plan. The original plan called for twelve New Zealand tracks. On December 28, we were completely rained out. This surprise addition to the schedule ended up getting us back to the original 12-track plan. Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis #1 Trackchaser Living West of the Mississippi Your best bet is to work your butt off, reach your goals and enjoy your rewards.
CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES: AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA – Sydney, Australia – 7,490 miles Sydney, Australia – Auckland, New Zealand – 1,340 miles
RENTAL CAR – AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND Auckland International Airport – trip begins Driving all over New Zealand TRACK ADMSSION PRICES: Western Springs Speedway – $20NZ Blue Chip Speedway at Baypark – Free Upper Hutt Family Speedway – $20NZ Stratford Speedway – $15NZ Huntly Speedway – Free Meremere Raceway – Free Meeannee Speedway – $15NZ Top of the South Speedway – $12NZ Woodford Glen Speedway – $12NZ Taupo Motorsports Park – $20NZ UPCOMING TRACKCHASING PLANS G’day, mate. We’ve got one more track scheduled for tonight at the Waikaraka Park International Speedway in Auckland. That should be fun. 
