TIMES have been pretty tough of late for New Zealand Motorsport.  

Not, of course, for their ever-increasing fleet of international superstars who continue to dominate in global Motorsport, but moreso their domestic scene which has endured years of struggle since the demise of the Super Tourers – a brilliant but all too brief domestic version of Supercars that was ultimately ripped apart by politics and division. 

There have been but a few highlights of late.

Toyota, via the remarkable Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceana (TRS to you and I and everyone else) and their incredibly strong GR86 series, have shone a light on Kiwi domestic Motorsport. 

Porsche NZs scholarship program for young Porsche drivers has delivered us Callum Hedge and Ryan Wood among others, while Tony Quinn seemingly purchasing another NZ circuit every few years means their facilities easily rival or eclipse our own for quality and diversity. 

Outside of that, thought, it’s been pretty slim pickings, and the current state of the Kiwi economy isn’t helping either.

That is until now though, following the debut of the new NextGen NZ Championships – the new Kiwi Summer Series owned and promoted by Tony Quinn’s Group behind his ever-expanding collection of race circuits and categories. 

Round 1 was held at Taupo on the weekend and initial impressions are that it will be A. Good. Thing. 

The solid opener saw six categories and about 140 cars in action, with the 86 and GT grids an obvious highlight and the key profile attractions. 

The racing was good, the product was well presented at the circuit and while it wasn’t huge as an event, it had a vibe and all the hallmarks of something that could grow into something much, much more than it is now. 

It felt like a SpeedSeries round (again, this is a good thing) with some really nice, Supercars-inspired touches in presentation and execution.

And right now, that’s all it needs – stability, consistency and a chance, for once, for the sport to actually build something, rather than falling into what seems like a typical Kiwi Motorsport trap of tearing itself asunder from the inside. 

There are some great elements in place as building blocks too. The TV deal is with Stuff, NZs largest news outlet, and it’s streamed for free. An Aussie equivalent would the Shannons SpeedSeries being streamed on news.com.au, which will give an idea of the potential eyeballs they can generate via that deal alone. 

And, while I am biased for having an on-air role last weekend, that TV product is good. It was everything you’d expect from a professional broadcast put together by professional people and on the surface, there was little difference in quality to what the SpeedSeries has had recently in these parts, which is to say, good.

So that’s a tick. 

There are decent categories – when CTFROC is added to the mix in January for their made five-week thrash it will add significantly to the program’s appeal – and operationally a team pulled together in just a few months executed something that felt like it had been going for years.

Feedback? My thoughts are that It’s clearly going to take time to re-engage the local audience to actually get to the track in meaningful numbers, though perhaps Taupo wasn’t the best indicator for fan attendance anyway. 

And events like the upcoming Historic GP at Taupo and the 69^th NZ Grand Prix at Highlands should be crowd-pullers, so perhaps it actually won’t take that long.

And while the mix of categories was great, to properly sell the program as an entity people will pay money to see live, it probably needs another profile class – a strong TA2 field would be brilliant, for example – to really allow the promoters to get out and sell a program that has something for everyone.

And there’s work to do – which I know is already underway – to tell people where and how to find a broadcast that is now completely removed from traditional linear channels.

Having spent much of the last two years telling people how to find 7plus, this won’t be the work of a moment but slowly, people do catch on and the benefits outweigh the educational process.

But these are things that will come in time and with that stability I touched on earlier.  

So, all in all, it seems like the Kiwis are finally on to a good thing.

With Quinn’s investment and the leadership from TQs powerhouse GM of everything, the magnificent Josie Spillane, there’s a very good chance that New Zealand Motorsport could finally have something beyond a car with a Toyota badge, or a surname like Lawson, Dixon, Evans, Payne or Armstrong, to be seriously proud of. 

So why write about it here? Well, in case you didn’t notice, Aussie Motorsport is filled with incredibly talented Kiwi racers – both on track and behind the scenes – and I’m of the opinion that the stronger their domestic sport is, the better ours becomes too. 

Despite the ditch between us, there’s more similarities than differences between our respective racing scenes and we should be working together to grow both – as the incredible Taupo Supercars round this year demonstrated. 

A rising tide and all that.. 

You see, New Zealanders are irritatingly good at Motorsport, and they tend to enhance the show wherever they go. So logic dictates that if the Kiwi show is good, it’s only going to help our side of the ditch as well. 

The promoters called the new series ‘NextGen’ as a means of showcasing the strength of NZ Motorsport in developing future superstar drivers, which it continues to do time and time again and far better than we do here. 

But I think it also represents a Next Generation for the sport domestically over there, in the land of the Long White Cloud. 

A chance to put the bullshit behind and build a local series that can be just as sparkling, just as talented and just as irritatingly brilliant as all those bloody Kiwi drivers routinely beating up on our own both here, and around the world.