Kiwi offroad racing national championship dates confirmed
• First ever race in the Coromandel
• Tough Woodhill enduro joins championship
• Year finishes at Full Throttle in Auckland

The 2010 Asset Finance New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship kicks off with an all-new event on the Coromandel Peninsula – the first time the sport’s flagship championship has appeared in the tourist mecca.
Over April 10 and 11, spectators at the Whitianga Festival of Speed will see the best and fastest drivers in the sport do battle for championship points in short course and enduro racing.  The Festival of Speed is an “all comers” event that celebrates the fastest and most spectacular sports on land, sea and air.  It attracted more than 20,000 people to the seaside town of Whitianga in its inaugural year, and organisers are expecting up to 50,000 this year.
Two weeks later the first South Island round will be hosted by the Nelson Offroad Racing Club on 24 April.  An enduro-only round, it will be the first chance for South Island competitors to get points on the board.  Nelson’s endurance races are held deep in production pine forests on hilly tracks where speeds are high but crashes have major consequences.  The South Island and North Island run separate regional series in the build-up to the national final, with competitors able to score points in either series but not both.
There is a break then until the first weekend of June, the traditional date for the classic Woodhill 100 enduro organised by Auckland Offroad Racing Club.  The event, which is held on the Sunday of the New Zealand observance of Queen’s Birthday Weekend, is the oldest race in the history of offroad racing in the country.  Several of the drivers and navigators entering this year’s race had not been born when the Woodhill was first held in the early 1908s.
After an almost two-month break the second South Island round brings the championship to Christchurch for a two-day short course/enduro race meeting on June 19 and 20 hosted by Canterbury Offroad Racing Club.  This event is run on a farm course (enduro) and at the canterbury club’s purpose-built stadium track at West Melton outside Christchurch.
Almost a month later, the last South Island regional round takes place at Dunedin, a short course single day event hosted by Otago Offroad Racing Club on July 17.  This race is the furthest south the championship has ever ventured, and it will be the third year in a row that the Otago club has hosted a national championship round.
The third and last North Island regional round will be hosted by All Terrain Racing Club at its Meremere track on August 29.
Following the ATR event, the national championship final once more brings offroad racing to a wide audience when it features as part of Manukau’s popular Full Throttle motorsport weekend, 23 and 24 October, in the south of Auckland.  The national championship final is hosted by Counties Manukau Offroad Club and its format, as always, features both short course and enduro racing on a farm course.

Mark Baker