Big guns eyeing up Rush Hour

Just days since live television coverage was confirmed for a 20 car Rush Hour field at two South and two North Island events, promoter Speed Works has already received a number of entries, with some of the fastest and coolest cars in New Zealand set to race.

Highlands Motorsport Park and Hampton Downs Motorsport Park owner Tony Quinn – who owns some of the most mouth-watering racing cars in New Zealand – will be a hot favourite at the Rush Hour at his own track next month and could drive his spectacular Mosler MT900 GT car, last raced around eight years ago in the Australian GT championship.

North Island Endurance Championship winner Glenn Smith will race one of his two McLaren 650s machines at the two North Island rounds at Hampton Downs and Pukekohe Park.

As in previous years, there are no restrictions on drivers or cars with the emphasis purely on extracting maximum performance. Those rules alone make Rush Hour unique and attractive to owners of GT machinery, sports cars such as Porsche Carrera Cup cars and Lamborghini Trofeo cars, high performance home-built machinery, touring cars from a variety of global series and V8-powered racing cars.

Without driver restriction, entrants have the option to run one or two drivers, with no restriction on the second driver in terms of driver ranking. That means an entrant could run a car for two fully-fledged professionals if they so wished.

Rules don’t restrict the talented amateur racers wanting to take on the pros. Each race will be held over a full hour, with a rolling start and the compulsory pit stop being taken during a dedicated pits stop window. The duration of the pit stop is defined by qualifying performance, so the faster the car in qualifying, the longer its compulsory pit stop. Tyre changes and refuelling are also permitted. The result of all of that is that cars that can get closest to their qualifying pace without going over it and maintain that pace for the longest period will be in with a shout of winning outright.

The first race will take place at Highlands Motorsport Park on Saturday 18th January, with practice available to drivers on the Friday before. Rush Hour then moves to Teretonga Park on Sunday January 26th with practice on the Saturday. The North Island races will be held on Saturday January 31st at Hampton Downs with practice on the Friday and then a fourth event will run at Pukekohe Park on Sunday February 9th with practice on the Saturday.