DAVIDS MEET GOLIATH AT 34TH WOODHILL 100
Offroad racing’s big banger unlimited class race cars meet the tiny but quick UTV four wheel drives in Woodhill Forest this Queen's Birthday weekend for 250 kilometres of all-out high speed racing.
This year the race is set to be a battle between the unlimited-class V8 race trucks and cars of class one and eight and the tiny but potent ‘UTV’ class Polaris and Can Am race cars that have swept through the sport in the past two years.
Fourteen or more unlimited-class cars – most of them V8 powered – will play ‘Goliath’ to the UTV ‘Davids’ in the 34th Woodhill 100, New Zealand’s fastest and toughest one day endurance race.
Proudly carrying the Chevy flag in the unlimited class are Ernie Hogg, multiple Woodhill 100 winner Tony McCall and Gregg Carrington-Hogg, all of them using high output modified LS-series V8 engines.
Alan Hilliam from the Waikato is also racing in the unlimited class, running a Porsche flat six engine in his single-seat race car.
The Polaris and Can Am UTV racers are a new arrival in the sport and Tauranga’s Ben Thomasen (Polaris RZR 900 in 2013, now upgraded to a bigger, faster RZR 1000) made his mark last year with pole position followed by runaway dominance in the opening laps. Thomasen, Phil Smart, Paul Sutton, Tony Radisich and Paeroa’s Mike Small are the first entries in the UTV class and Silverstone Race to the Sky icon Rocket Ron Kirkman has just confirmed an entry driving his Arctic Cat. There are seven UTVs confriemd so far.
Top trucks
Meanwhile, Albany’s Raana Horan leads the race truck entries in his mighty Nissan Titan V8. Horan counts this race as his ‘home’ event and has won it twice. He was the first driver ever to win the Woodhill in a race truck. Local racer Jono Climo is bringing his Toyota Hilux Trophy Truck and Justin Leonard brings his Tulsi Pies-sponsored Chev Colorado all the way from Wellington. Rotorua’s Mike Cox has just confirmed he will join the fray in his Toyota Hilux V8 Pro Lite.
The most punishing enduro in the sport
The Woodhill is a 50-50 mix of gravel forest roads and rough sand tracks and every year attracts the top race drivers and teams. The course is plotted so that drivers go from fast 200 km/h roads into mud bogs or sand tracks that force them into first or second gear. The fastest race cars are likely to lap in an average speed of more than 120 km/h and top out at 210 km/h on the longer straights. Race entries had exceeded 65 cars a week out from the event and organisers expect to see a grid of 70 or more on when the action starts at 11.00 am on Sunday 1 June.
The Woodhill is open to cars complying with the 13 classes of car eligible for the national championship. These range from the diminutive Kiwitrucks used in the youth category all the way to ‘anything goes’ unlimited-class trucks and race cars.
Scrutineering and qualifying for the event will be held from noon on Saturday May 31 at the Steele family’s sand quarry north of Kumeu; the race on Sunday June 1 is accessed off Trig Road north of Parakai. Racing starts at 9.30 am for the youth category and the main event starts at 11.00 am.
The Stihl Shop Woodhill 100 will also be filmed for TV3’s CRC Motorsport programme.