For businessman Tony Quinn, Sunday’s Hampton Downs 101 race is just another one to tick of an unusual list he’s got.
The 59-year-old has achieved great success in life, the Scottish born entrepreneur started VIP Petfoods in 1994 and sold it in 2015 for $410million.
He bought Darrell Lee, the iconic Aussie confectionary brand, which was losing $11 million a year in 2012 and is now making double that in profit.
He’s done everything a person could put down on a bucket list, so now has what he calls is a f— it list. Which is where buying Hampton Downs, doing it up and staging at the Australian GT Series this weekend comes in.
“I still feel young, but I know that I’m not,” Quinn says as he was overseeing the finishing touches to his motor racing event, which he hopes to attract 10,000 people to.
“A lot people just retire and then die, I don’t want to do that.
“People talk about having a bucket list and those that do, plan it.
I’ve done my bucket list, so now I’ve got a f— it list, I wake up in the morning and think ‘f— it, I’ll do that.’
“It’s spontaneous, and that’s how I live my life now.”
Motorsport has always been his passion, he’ll be driving at the 101, with the legendary Greg Murphy, who he persuaded to come out of retirement just for this.
He owns the boutique Highlands circuit in Central Otago and he eventually came around to the idea of buying Hampton Downs, which had been haemorrhaging money since building work started on it in 2007.
“I was approached to do something at Taupo, because basically, every race track is buggered, the sport is in disarray to be honest and needs fixing,” Quinn said.
“So I looked at Taupo, but they wanted to recoup all of their losses and no one is going to do that for them.
“Then Tony Roberts from here phoned up and said ‘we’re ready to sell, there’s no way out for us.’
“So I bought it for $13.5 million as it was, which was half done, untidy, unkept and had the smell of death about it.
“I’ve spent $20 odd million on it, maybe $10 million on the track and $10 million on the industrial area and the go kart track.”
But if the previous owners couldn’t make Hampton Downs work, why did Quinn think he could?
“There’s a fair bit of passion there,” he said.
“There’s no way now you could build a racetrack and pay it back, so you’ve got to have the money to do build it and then it looks after itself operationally.
“To try to borrow money to build a racetrack is never going to work and that’s what the other guys did.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do this, I’ve paid enough tax, I don’t need anymore success in my life and I just want to enjoy the things I can do.”
The Australian GT Series is just the start for the new look circuit and he plans to restore some pride in a motor racing event that’s fallen into neglect in recent years, the New Zealand Grand Prix.
It’s been won by such greats as Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, John Surtees, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Bruce McLaren, Chris Amon and Keke Rosberg in the past.
Last year it was won by a 16-year-old kid from Britain called Lando Norris.
“We’re planning on Pan Pacific Asia, GT thing in 2018, but I’d like to also have the New Zealand Grand Prix here,” Quinn said.
“The Grand Prix is such a great thing for New Zealand and it used to be a marvellous thing where people would come down from Europe in the summer for it.
“But it’s been lost in the quagmire of s*** that’s happened and I would like to help re-establish it as a major event.”
You get the feeling that if Quinn does bring it to his track, he just might do that.
