Photo: Dennis AndreassendDefending offroad racing national champion Daniel Powell of Christchurch looked set to dominate the third round of the championship at Christchurch on Saturday until a tangle with a slower car derailed his charge in the final race of the day.
Powell, driving an American-built Jimco single-seater with a 375 kW turbocharged Nissan 350Z engine, won all three heats in the Kumeu Transport Engineering unlimited class ahead of Nelson driver Dennis Andreassend.
Andreassend wasn’t at the wheel of the most powerful car at the event, but he did come armed with the championship point lead and a car with a massive pedigree.
Despite giving away up to 150kW to defending champion Daniel Powell’s massive American Jimco Nissan race car, the Andreassend team’s Cougar Evo was formerly campaigned by Tony McCall and is the sport’s most successful race car ever. Painstakingly rebuilt and with the support of Richie Wormald as engineer, it was the only car able to consistently challenge Powell, and when the pair went head to head in the final race of the day it was a determined Andreassend who emerged outright winner and championship leader.
Powell’s car, tuned and engineered by former national champion Andrew Thomason , has been refined over two seasons and is the most powerful car in the championship. Tuning has more recently focussed on handling and power delivery. Powell was able to dictate racing in the first three heats, leaving the unlimited-class field in his wake. Jimco race cars are designed to handle the worst extremes of the sport’s most famous race, the Baja 1000 in Mexico ; the Radio Hauraki short course track offered Powell and the Jimco a winter playground. Though Andreassend was able to stay level with Powell in corners, he had no answer for the Powell car’s massive power on straights.
“I could stay level with him in turns, but couldn’t close that gap. The only place we could claw back some time was over jumps, where the Cougar flies flat and level and is much lighter than the American car.”
Andreassend put in three gritty drives for three second placings behind Powell – though the frustration occasionally showed – and had maintained a narrow six point lead going into the 15-lap reverse grid feature race. He then managed to get in front of Powell at mid-distance as the pair carved their way through slower cars.
In the following lap, Andreassend used lapped traffic to create a small gap until the flying pair chased down a much slower Challenger VW car. Andreassend went left, Powell right, aiming to get the inside line into the following right hand corner. The Jimco and the smaller Challenger made contact, Powell’s car slewed sideways into the trackside tyre barriers, and then barrel-rolled off the track, tearing off its left front suspension completely in the process.
With the immediate threat gone. Andreassend wisely reduced his pace to lap the whole field and win without risking his car or his points. Second in that race, and moving up to second overall in the championship despite a rollover in one race, was “part time Jafa” Ryan Densem racing in the Southern Lakes Transmissions Super 1300 class. Densem earns his nickname because he commutes from Auckland to the South Island to race in championship events there.
Daniel Powell and Camco Offroad sport truck class racer Simon Smith share third equal on points for the championship. Both Christchurch-based and both defending class champions, the pair are 12 points behind Densem and 24 points adrift of Andreassend.
The weekend was won outright by a rookie entry in Camco Offroad production class. Steven Boyd, driving a tiny 1.6-litre Suzuki Jeep, won all four races for the well-supported class. Another Christchurch driver, Tod Johnson, had won the class at the opening round but was only able to manage second on Saturday ahead of Otago driver Carl Gardiner.
It was a good day for Christchurch drivers. Though class three front-runner Wayne Moriarty broke two axles in two heats for the Pine Harbour Painters Super 1600s, he won the first two. Fellow Christchurch racer Nigel Sutherland emerged the class winner on the day ahead of Bruce Rolls, who is moving up from the Super 1300 class this year. Third in that class was another Christchurch racer, Matthew Adams.
Camco Offroad class four for sport trucks was won be the defending class champion, Simon Smith of Christchurch . Long-time rival Darrin Thomason had brought his Toyota Hilux out of retirement to challenge Smith but broke his front suspension. Smith survived an early two-wheeling moment to amass 64 points on the day and is third overall in the championship, equal on points with Daniel Powell.
The next generation of offroad race drivers were contesting the Southern Lakes Transmissions Super 1300 class. Ryan and Clint Densem, sons of long-time unlimited class racer Geoff, faced off against Haydn Andreassend, son of Dennis; Shannon Rolls has taken over his dad’s class five car. The Densem boys and Shannon Rolls are all Christchurch drivers. Despite a spectacular rollover, Ryan Densem fought off a determined challenge from Haydn Andreassend to win the class in his Nissan-powered single-seater.
Camco Offroad class six for road-registered trucks – established for winch challenge competitors – was won by the four door, four seat, four wheel drive “Strange” Rover of Neil Falkingham. The truck carries up to four people on race days, its roll cage designed to protect all four in the event of a crash.
In the top truck class, Camco Offroad ThunderTruck class eight, Mark French of Blenheim ran out the winner in his Land Rover V8 when Donald Preston’s supercharged Lexus V8 engined Toyota Land Cruiser blew its transmission.
The “one-make” Challenger VW class went to local driver Chris Devereux ahead of Queenstown driver Matthew Pratt and Simon Jensch of Otago.
Ron Campbell was unchallenged in the Formula 1100 class.
The next round of the 2009 Asset Finance New Zealand Offroad Racing National Championship takes place this weekend in Palmerston North. North Island and South Island drivers race separate three-round regional championships for national points, then come together at Labour Weekend in Christchurch at Labour Weekend for a national final event which decides the overall champion.
