News

The Battery World Aussie Racing Cars Super Series is making the trip across the Tasman to New Zealand for its title decider at the spectacular Highlands Motorsport Park, near Queenstown.

A strong and competitive field is due to contest the final round, which will be held in conjunction with the 10th anniversary meeting of Highlands Motorsport Park on November 3-5.

Following an exciting five rounds in Australia, the Battery World Aussie Racing Cars Super Series teams have packed up all cars, spare parts, tools and all equipment required to go racing into five shipping containers – two from Sydney and Brisbane in addition to another from Melbourne.

The containers are now on their way to New Zealand where they will then be freighted to Highlands where quarantine takes place ahead of the track action.

This NZ adventure marks the third time the Battery World Aussie Racing Cars Super Series has raced in New Zealand after trips to Highlands (2015) and a double duty program in 2016 at Hampton Downs and Pukekohe.

As a result of these trips, Aussie Racing Cars management already had the necessary frames to freight the entries safely into New Zealand as Category Manager Brad Ward explained.

“We’ve been to New Zealand twice before and as part of the planning process to do those events across both years, we built special frames that slot into the shipping containers to double stack the cars,” said Ward.

“This gives us the economy of scale to load six cars into a container and make it more cost effective to take the category overseas. It was just a matter of pulling out the frames out of storage and slotting them into containers to send to New Zealand.

“We had two 40 foot containers for the cars from Queensland, two from Sydney and one from Melbourne for both Victorian and South Australian competitors.”

Five weeks prior to the event, all the cars and equipment had to be ready for shipping ahead of arrival to New Zealand then freighted down to Highlands Motorsport Park where quarantine takes place ahead of competition.

“We’re lucky as Highlands has a NPI Pad designated area at the circuit where customs allows items to be checked and cleared,” Ward detailed.

“So, customs and quarantine will arrive a couple of days before the event when we unpack the containers where they will clear it all at the circuit. On the way back, similarly we’ll load the containers up at the circuit, sealed and sent back to Australia.

“It’s a pretty simple process. Since Highlands has gone through the process of getting the approved area at the track approved by New Zealand customs, it makes sending cars back and forth for events fairly simple.

“The category in conjunction with the circuit organised the freight, so the teams didn’t have to contribute. We’re thankful to the Highlands Motorsport Park team and Tony Quinn for chipping in to do that for us, as certainly without that there’s no way the category could afford to race overseas.”

Ward is excited for the Battery World Aussie Racing Cars Super Series to make a return to Highlands Motorsport Park as the circuit provides unique challenges to those in Australia in what is one of the most scenic backdrops in global motorsport.

“It’s quite a unique circuit from the perspective of there’s really no circuit like that in Australia and it’s rare around the world to be racing in the forest as well as crossing a bridge,” Ward said.

“This is in addition to the circuit being set in a breathtaking part of the world that makes it special for the driver and fans.”

The title fight continues as Osborn's Transport driver Joel Heinrich leads the series by six-points from CoolDrive-supported duo Reece Chapman of Motorsport25 and Perenso Racing's Josh Anderson is a further point behind.

Track action kicks off on Friday, November 3.

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