Brendon Hartley, originally uploaded by Paul...Gibson

Kiwibloke’s first love has always been cars, the faster the better. In Kiwibloke’s mis-spent youth he owned two Alfa Romeo club cars, a 33QV and a Sprint QV. He was spectacularly unsuccessful emulating the success of former kiwi Formula 1 stars including Denny Hulme, Chris Amon, and Bruce Maclaren among others, and now runs a software company instead.
Creating a successful racing car career requires raw talent and kiwi Brendon Hartley has the goods. It is this talent that has lead him to a back up seat in Formula 1.  In February 2008, Kiwi Brendon (on these pages he gets the honorific “Kiwi”) got his first taste of Formula One. He was invited to perform a show run for Red Bull Racing in Riyadh. From here he performed the initial 3 day shake down test for Scuderia Toro Rosso. For the 2009 season, Hartley was appointed as official reserve driver for both the Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso teams. He is the first New Zealander to achieve F1 driver status since Mike Thackwell in 1984.

Brendon’s race schedule will see him back in the World Series Renault 3.5 category for his debut tearing up the streets of millionare billionare enclave Monaco this weekend. The 19-year-old kiwi will race a Red Bull Dallara chassis in a 25-lap, non-championship sprint race on Sunday morning, just before the Monaco Grand Prix. Hartley is entered by the French Tech 1 team, running alongside Charles Pic who was the fastest qualifier and race winner in the 3.5 Renault race in the Principality (Prince Albert is a huge racing fan) last season.  The Monaco Grand Prix has been held every year since 1929.

As a note kiwi driver Matt Halliday qualified fastest in the inaugural Renault 3.5 race at Monaco in 2003. Matt drove a superb race and held the lead for all of 21 laps of the 22 lap race. His gearbox imploded on the last lap and ended up coasting to a second place finish. Halliday will compete at Monaco this weekend in the Porsche Super Cup race.

“I want to win races for my country – but most of all I want to win for myself and the people who have believed in me from the very beginning.” – Kiwi Brendon

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Uploaded on Flickr by lavapiubianco

What’s your name young man? ….. McFarland…Mike McFarland

I knew a McFarland, he used to sell milking machines in Timaru….

You must be related because he was a total prick…..

[The World's Fastest Indian]

[Burt Munroe]

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The hand built Hulme Canam car was driven last weekend at the Taupo A1GP event. Named after Kiwi Formula One driver Denny Hulme, the Hulme CanAm is scheduled for limited production build in 2010, with a provisional price of Euro 295,000. The development of further model derivatives is planned, including a Coupe version.

Designed and hand-built by the Hulme technology team in New Zealand – including members responsible for the nation’s America’s Cup triumph – in co-operation with Massey University, the road-legal CanAm features an ultra-lightweight carbon composite tub and bodywork and race-orientated chassis, suspension and braking, and is powered by a hand-built 7-litre (427cu.in) Chevrolet V8 developing 600bhp and 600Nm torque, fed through a close-ratio, six-speed CIMA gearbox.

Chris Amon drove the orange-and-black Hulme CanAm roadster on the Taupo racetrack 24 hours ago, during a break in the A1GP schedule.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A3kJmarUA0

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzdjwUfrTGs

Things turned ugly for Black Beauty at Taupo this afternoon, with New Zealand driver Chris van der Drift failing to recover from a nightmare first lap in the A1GP feature race. Switzerland’s Neel Jani won the race, after a pitlane error let him past series leader and sprint race winner Adam Carroll of Ireland. Portugal’s Felipe Albuquerque was third, followed by Australian John Martin. Ireland holds its series lead, now followed by Switzerland. New Zealand has dropped one place to sixth.

The top three on the grid for this afternoon was a carbon copy of this morning’s sprint race, with Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal up front.

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One of the big benefits of formula one racing cars roaring round Monaco is that they represent the state of art of vehicle technology. Many technology advances in braking, combustion and aerodynamics among others first arrive in Formula then move to high performance vehicles then to mainstream vehicles.

The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is one of these technologies that are being proven out in Formula One and will eventually move to mainstream vehicle manufacture. Formula One represents the extreme of testing. It is the equivalent of building a website and the next day 1 million people turn up on your website. It is very clear that if this technology can be made to work with cars that travel at 300+ kph, rev at over 12000 rpm and corner upwards of 5g is the perfect test for kinetic storage technologies.

You can learn more about KERS technology here.

Flickr Photo Uploaded on February 4, 2008 by PlanetaF1

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New Zealand claimed second in the A1GP series for the second year running with New Zealand driver Jonny Reid hailing the team’s consistency.

Switzerland won the World Cup of Motorsport trophy for the first time after building an unassailable lead after the sprint race in the 10th and final round at Brands Hatch.

Driver Neel Jani finished fourth in the first race – behind Robbie Kerr of Britain, Jonathan Summerton of the United States and Adam Carroll of Ireland – but it was enough to clinch the overall title for Switzerland before the main race.

New Zealand were the only team that could have overhauled Switzerland in the final round of the season, but had to finish at least second in the sprint race.

However, Reid finished eighth in the sprint race. He was also eighth in the feature race – just enough to fend off Britain, who leaped over France to finish third overall, just one point behind New Zealand.

Switzerland finished the season with 168 points, followed by New Zealand with 127 and Britain with 126.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfYndfgGLzg

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CQn-smCfCg

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Pro-motion from Auckland has just introduced the latest and most realistic car simulator in New Zealand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAoKUmi4JSM

This can simulate from simple car racing senarios, to Porsche GT3 Cup Cars to Formula One from the safety of a driving platform. Included is the proposed Auckland V8 Supercars track (which was lost to Hamilton)

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The Hamilton 400 was held a couple of weeks ago. Those of you who have grown up down up know of the 40 year old tussle between Holden and Ford that culminates each year at the Bathurst 1000. The series is known as the V8 Supercars. Unlike NASCAR, it has retained since 1960 the Stock car format, which means that the cars must come off a normal factory assembly among many other rules. The upshot is that these cars can be purchased for road use (albeit detuned) from such tuners as Holden Special Vehicles. What this means is that the racing is far more exciting than NASCAR because the cars are real family saloons that we drive to work and the racing is far more visual than what you can expect from a NASCAR race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHIzT1kOE-U

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Wow……

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A1GP heads for Taupo New Zealand on the 19th – 21st January.

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Aussie (and Kiwi) Motor-racing Hero Peter Brock died while racing on Saturday. West Australian police say the car crashed into a tree at Gidgegannup about 40 kilometres north-east of Perth about 12pm (AEST).

Brock, 61, from Melbourne, became Australia’s best known motor sport personality and a dominant figure in the sport. He was a dominant figure in Australian motor sport, winning the Bathurst 1000, Australia’s most prominent domestic motorsport event, a total of nine times through the 1970s and 80s. He won six Bathurst 1000 wins in seven years, including his victory in the 1979 event, which he won by a record six laps. He retired from full-time driving in 1997.

Brock Killed in Hairpin Crash

Peter is a hero in Australian and New Zealand for his exploits on the Motor Racing Track. As the main protagonist for Holden against Arch-rival Ford (and Dickie Johnson), the battle that culminated each year at Mount Panorama was a battle of giants in while keen young blokes could engage in. It was not unlike Rugby or Soccer, you had your team, Holden or Ford and that was the team you cheered for. Peter was a hero, not just because who he played for, but for how he played. Peter was the perfect sportsman, who took winning with humility and defeat with graciousness. He will be sorely missed.  A true Aussie Hero and Bloke.

You can see a video of Peter Brock at the wheel of the Holden Torana A9X here.

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