The ASKO South Island Endurance Series blasts into life this weekend with its annual trip to the worlds southernmost circuit at Teretonga Park, Invercargill for Round One of its Three Round Series. The 2014 ASKO Series is guaranteed to be as exhilarating as previous years and with the Series being awarded NZ Endurance Championship status for 2014 it will mean that finishing races, performing well & accumulating championship points will be the key to ultimate success.
The fastest endurance cars in New Zealand are heading south for the Series opener and it will be a sight to behold as household Kiwi names such as Craig Baird and Ant Pederson will come directly from competing in the Sandown 500 to line up at the Teretonga Series opener. The series is again excited to have ASKO Appliances as its naming rights sponsor and along with series sponsors Mobil 1, Pacific Invoice Finance, Paul Kelly Motor Company and Hagley Aluminium they have managed to secure a significant prize money pool to pay out to series competitors. We have $30,000 in cash that we will pay out across the classes in both the 3hr & 1hr Series said series secretary Chris Dunn. Plus we have a magnificent Norm Sinclair original painting valued around $10,000 a set of new Michelin tyres and goodies from ENDLESS brakes that will all be given away as spot prizes, so its again NZs biggest prize and prizemoney package.
The Series is delighted with both the quality & quantity of entries and once again they have some new and electrifying cars joining the Series. The series will see every ASKO 3 hour Series champion since 2006, except one, returning as teams not only battle it out for class and Series honors and silverware, but now also have the added incentive of also being crowned the Motorsport New Zealand Endurance Champions for 2014.
The battle for outright honors is likely to come from the exotic GT class, which is dominated by the Porsche marquee with 10 of the German machines set to take on the Italian Stallion Ferrari F430 driven by young gun & 2012/13 NZ Endurance Champion Jono Lester & Robin Gray. However this year may be the best chance yet for a v8 victory with the thundering ex-V8 SuperCar of Matt Carter/Dwayne Cater being prepped for a full on assault at the ASKO title. They are joined in the V8 camp by the superb V8 SuperTourer prototype, fresh from winning the recent Mahindra North Island Endurance Series, piloted at Teretonga by John DeVeth & John Hepburn and a car that many many people are looking forward to seeing, the brand new FIA GT3 spec Chev Camaro of Southland hero & motorsport legend Inky Tulloch. Tulloch will team up with past Series champions Grant Aitken as they make a serious tilt at the ASKO & NZ titles. However, as good as the V8s may be, you can never discount the Porsches and multiple series champion Paul Kelly has Porsche superstar Craig Baird as his team mate for the 2014 series. Their new weapon will be Pauls ex Australian Carrera Cup car, as PK sets his sights on an unprecedented fourth straight title. Other Porsche entries that certainly cant be discounted include the International Motorsport entry of Andrew Bagnall/Ant Pedersen (997 GT3) and Allan Dippe/Scott ODonnell (997 GT3 Cup S) as well as young gun George McFarlane/Angus McFarlane (997 GT3 Cup R), however the cat amongst the pigeons could easily be past series champion Michael Bushell & TraNZam champ Grant Silvester who will revert to the Red Rocket Porsche 996 GT2 twin turbo for the 2014 Series, and will be a serious threat if they can iron out the bugs from this lethal weapon.
With the factory built race cars in the GT class, Class 1 (3501cc +) is dominated by the traditional Kiwi Hybrids and picking a class winner here is equally as unlikely. 2011 & 2013 Class champions Graham Rhodes/Paul Rickerby will be using an updated version of last years Mazda RX7 V8 for their 2014 class title defense and will be joined by the sister car of Darryl Barrett/Hamish Frew who are stepping up from the 1hr Series. Another to look out for will be the magnificent Corvette C6R of Bruce Davidson/Dave Garden who are looking forward to a strong showing after a year of development with their new car and 2012 Class champions Craig McDermid/Scott McDermid are waving the turbo flag as they debut the amazing new twin turbo Supra powered Toyota 86, so you can guarantee that Class 1 will also be an enthralling duel.
A few of the Class 2 (2001cc -3500cc) cars could easily surprise with BMW entries dominating this class, including the experience duo of Jim Wallace/Stephen Grellet, Allan McCormick/David McCormick (BMW GTR) and the immaculate M3 Turbo for Shane Helms/Rob Bolland. The unknown quantity in class two would be previous class 3&4 winners Steve Parker/Matt Jackson who move up a class for 2014 with the flower power Honda S2000 now having a turbocharged engine. Other to look out for in class 2 are Mike Driver/Guy Stewart (Seat Leon Supercopa) plus a 2 car team from Ralliart NZ for past NZ rally champ Chris West/Andrew Simms (Evo 10) and Matthew Wales/Craig Vulawalu (Evo 9), who will both no doubt be looking for some Teretonga rain.
The final class is our combined class 3&4 (0-2000cc) which is also shaping up to be a very exciting class and has some magnificent machinery. The 2014 class winning ex- Kiwi Team Nurburgring Civic R of Paul Coghill/Kynan Yu will take on the beautiful factory built Mugen Civic RC Cup car of Garry Cliff/Hayden Knighton. Another factory car is the ex-World Touring Car BMW 320i of Arron Black/Stu Black who will drop back to class 3&4 for 2014 after replacing the unreliable 3 litre engine in favour of the cars original 2 litre WTCC powerplant. Honda also power entries for Jeff Vincent/Daniel Currie (Civic) and Tim Pollard/Mark Meadows (Integra) against the lone Toyota ex NZ Touring car Corona of Grant Constable/tba and the ever reliable Peugeot 106 of Ken Sinclair/Dennis Ham, who will keep everyone in the class honest through reliability if not speed.
After this weekends round at Teretonga, the ASKO Endurance Series moves to Mike Pero Ruapuna, Christchurch on 4 October before the Series grand finale at Levels Raceway, Timaru on 18 October, where the overall 3 Hour Series champion will be awarded the South Canterbury Toyota Cup as well as the New Zealand Endurance Championship title
Qualifying and the race are on Saturday 20th September, wit the 3hr race expected to start around 1:30pm. With 30 cars scheduled to line up at Teretonga there are still some entry spots still available for the Three Hour Series. For more information on the South Island Endurance Series, entries, or to be added to the South Island Endurance Racing Drivers Clubs e-mailing list, please contact Chris Dunn via e-mail at [email protected] ph 021-107-9293. Club information can also be found on facebook at www.facebook.com/sierdcnz, where there are free tickets plus a hotlap to be given away. For more information on the series sponsor ASKO, please visit www.asko.co.nz
