New Zealand Datsun Club

OK, so I have just got off the phone to Secretary of South Canterbury car club.
Long story short, pushing shit up hill to run on the long weekend, Council don’t like events on stat weekends, and also track volunteers don’t like doing long weekends.

Additionally the limited track days available mean you effectively have to await a cancellation of another event before you would have a chance. Even, if that was the case, the cost to get a permit to run an event like this to get Motorsport NZ approval, public liability cover, ambo’s etc would run us $2-3K in admin costs alone, that and everyone would need to buy one day club sport licenses / club affiliation, would make it uneconomic, even if we had say 30 cars, we could be talking upwards of $200 per car

So the only real option is to piggy back on to another event, two spring to mind, one being the Christchurch Car Club Track days, that they are now doing down here @ Levels now and again due to the limitation on Ruapuna operating days. Two, and maybe more appropriate would be to try to get in with the Falcon/Fairlane club who have been doing an annual track day for years. They do a ¼ mile, “go to wo”, and single car flying sprint laps. By the sounds of it they have struggled for numbers in the last few years, so this could be a good option (if they will share the day with some jap crap!) currently this is being hosted on 1st October.

The V 4’s & rotary nat’s are being hosted here in Timaru later in the year, and they are currently booked for 9-10th December @ Levels but are hoping a cancellation will allow them to change to October / November. There could be an option to enter this also – but really we would be lost in the crowd of other cars.

Either way what I need is a genuine indication of interested numbers, as I am not going to spend a lot of time on trying to put something together, if there is only a dozen people wanting to partake in a track day.

Perhaps it is a real option to have the nationals 3 weeks earlier than tradition and get involved with falcon club, we could do a track day, bit of a booze up Saturday night and then an organized cruise on the Sunday perhaps before everyone heads home? Being a nothing weekend, should mean local budget accommodation is not an issue.

Thoughts everyone?

my 5 cents

thanks kitch you have done a fantastic job.
yes iam keen for a track day, never liked doing things on public holiday/long weekends as every man and his caravan is out and I hate driving Canterbury roads in that bullshit

don't know what I think of joining the falcon club, iam on the fence on that one. I guess its a committee decision as it involves money

your a fucking legend kitch!!!!!!!!!!!!

cheers Kitch, we will discuss at the next meeting, thanks for taking the time you have already, canterbury car club piggy back may be the way to get a track day in, just not over labour weekend. waimate for labour weekend is still a very viable thing though, so keep us posted if they can put some real estate aside to park on.

Why not try to combine both this years north and south to one big south island event as next year we have Datsport coming and are to have a large north island event?

Make Nationals one event (finally) and get more people / more cars to our biggest event.

Club can help to fund getting the northerners south and the southeners north etc.

I think we are on the right track with the timaru / waimate 50 thing

Food for thought for sure brocky, although its a fair way from the likes of auckland to waimate, ill put it down for discussion at the next meeting. Personally im keen on the north island for next year.

OK so bumped into Kurt from Waimate 50 car club at Levels while I was racing at weekend.

He was super keen to have us involved with labour weekend activities. and said not a problem to have a park up area in the centre of the cordoned off area somewhere, show n' shine, and also said he could maybe get us to do a tour lap of the street circuit (probably during lunch break or the likes) which would be an awesome way to promote our club!

We probably need to be committed to be there inside the area for the day, but I am sure we can work with that

Sounds like a pretty good plan to me!

Perfect result right there, we could combine a track attack with the lunchtime cruise round the track lol. Do they have any idea what time they would want us there by in the morning?

not sure there, i would imagine it may necessitate travelling to Timaru on Saturday arvo & maybe staying the night and shooting down first thing ie 9am ish

Good idea, is it Sunday only in waimate? Or just Street racing Sunday, and other events on the sat.

There is usually a Hill Climb Saturday, would be good if there were some Datsuns to support.