It’s the toughest, longest and fastest offroad race in the Southern Hemisphere and competitors include former champs and a Lotto winner.

The Taupo 1000 offroad race runs from this weekend and will be the biggest race for the event in 21 years. Over 125 vehicles in various guises will test themselves on the course.

The Taupo 1000 runs every two years and tests drivers and pit teams with the mammoth task of racing 1000 kilometres over rough terrain without so much as a sniff of tarmac.

“We have the best quality entry ever, an all-new course that will challenge drivers with terrain that runs from narrow forest tracks to logging highways, and the pit village is now almost complete,” said organiser Tony Saelman.

“This race is the equivalent of three Rally New Zealands all wrapped into two days of offroad competition. It’s the toughest test for driver and vehicle, and simply getting to the finish on the second day is a major achievement.”

The race is likely to be a pair of 500km sprint races for the leading teams.

The top classes usually set the race pace, and with 24 entries in the unlimited class it’s likely to be fast and furious.

There are five former champions hankering to get another trophy for the mantelpiece – Alan Butler, Clim Lammers, Tony McCall, Melvin Rouse and Clive Thornton (Whakatane). Lotto millionaire Trevor Cooper will be driving a brand-new Jimco Chev.

A further 20 entries in class three for cars with engines up to 1.6 litres will be at, or close to, the pace of the big unlimited cars including two-time Woodhill 100 winner James Buchanan, who ran in the top five in the 2011 Taupo race in his Cougar Suzuki Evo.

Several of the 14-strong unlimited truck class have the potential to run in the top five each day and among them Raana Horan, fresh from a year in the Australian Offroad Racing Championship, is a prime contender for the title. Horan will pilot a 6.0-litre four-wheel-drive Nissan Titan and was third overall in the 2011 Taupo race.

Nick Leahy and Nick Hall are strong contenders for the class win along with father and son team Martin and William van der Wal.

There is the new UTV competing and some of those guys have shown the potential of this new class to win endurance races. If they can minimise the effect of their limited range then Ben Thomasen, Mike Small or Reece Trotter could be well placed to take the win.

Also racing in the UTV class is 77-year-old Ron Kirkman who’s likely to be the oldest racer at the event but by no means the slowest. He won the UTV class in the 2011 race.

The event has been plotted over a new course based around a 50km lap on new roads never used for the race. There is also a new pit and prologue area on farmland on SH5 at Opepe, 12km from Taupo.