Photo: Raana HoranSouth Head’s Raana Horan made history today when he became the first to win the Denny’s Woodhill 100 endurance race in a four wheel drive truck.
Horan, driving a V8 engined Nissan Titan utility, qualified on pole for the testing 165 km race and was never headed. It is the first time a truck-class competitor has qualified on pole for the race and the first ever win for a truck.
He defeated leading race car drivers including locals Donn Attwood and Rene Sciarone, Rotorua’s Mike Cox and Shayne Huxtable of Hawkes Bay , whose Nissan turbo engine exploded while he was second overall.
At the finish, Whakatane driver Malcolm Langley was second overall in his Mitsubishi Evo-engined Bakersfield single seater race car, while Sciarone came home third.
The race was stopped twice, the first halt coming on the second lap when Otakiri driver Gary Baker rolled his Nissan Navara while third overall. He and navigator Mark Hobson were uninjured but were unable to continue.
The second stoppage came on the final lap and forced the end of the race when most of the field became jammed up behind several crashed and bogged cars.
Today’s event was the 30th anniversary of the iconic offroad endurance race, and it was the second North Island round of the 2010 Asset Finance New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship.
