Pacenotes – Show them the way

They reckon idle hands are the devil’s tools and I’ll admit to a little mischief whenever I’m bored. I erected ‘For Sale’ signs outside the NZ Autocar offices last April Fool’s Day (which I thought was hilarious).

They retaliated by moving the entire business offsite and I still haven’t worked out where.

One of my favourite pranks is to pull out a spirit level and tape measure whenever I’m visiting Hampton Downs motorsport park. The prime viewing positions for the whole site are occupied by apartments.

Its residents get understandably nervous when they spot me sizing up their prized accommodation.

“It’s for the new grandstands,” I soothe.

It was as I was scuttling away to safety that I noticed the little club circuit was in operation while the main track was in use.

This is very much part of the Tony Quinn philosophy – his circuits need to be earning their keep so it makes sense to run multiple events on the same day.

I was even more delighted when I realised this auxiliary race meeting was being run by the MG Car Club. Old blokes tinkering with even older sports cars are easy targets for my mirth, so I made a beeline down there to share my wit and wisdom.

Sure enough, the pit paddock was full of MGs with their bonnets up, and I knew I had struck comedy gold when I spotted my first cashmere cheesecutter.

Except the first person I bumped into was an 18-year-old called Keira Fenwick.

“Are you my instructor?” she asked hopefully.

This threw me completely but I was saved by the appearance of her real trainer, Den Williams.

Den is a national motokhana legend (and is also Racing Ray’s smarter brother), so it made a lot of sense for him to take youngsters under his wing.

While the pair ventured out onto the track in an MGF, I quizzed her Mum about Keira’s motivation.

“I suppose this is going straight onto Instagram – ‘Look at me, I’m a racing driver’?”

“Not at all,” she corrected. “She’s very much into living life to the fullest, rather than staring at a screen.”

I was trying to work out some clever punchline that she was in fact still staring at a wind-screen, when her Mum added, “Plus she wants to honour her grandma Tairi, who was a noted hillclimber in her day.

I watched as Keira, now driving solo, put in a series of increasingly faster laps before pulling back in with a grin on her face.

“This isn’t just a fleeting fancy, is it? You look like you’ve got the bug.”

“I want this to be a career,” she agreed. “I’ve got an apprenticeship at an MG workshop and hope to be a racecar mechanic one day.”

“So rather than winning Bathurst, you want to be the engineer on the winning car?”

“That’s the dream.”

When I was 18, I was more concerned about being caught underage drinking so I was impressed with her quiet maturity.

“So, what’s the next step from here? Presumably you still want to keep your hand in with some competitive driving as well. Mazda Racing Series? NaZCAR LEMONS? Perhaps the TR86s?”

She looked wistfully out at the track and shook her head. “To be honest, I find the circuits a little bit repetitive and the races are over so quickly. I’d like to try something longer, where the corners are always changing. Are you familiar with the sport of rallying?”

I nearly broke down into tears of joy, and momentarily forgot about mocking the elderly British automobiles with their notorious mechanical foibles.

As we started discussing her future, she surprised me by asking for my learned opinion.

“So what do you think I should do next?”

Behind us there was a screeching of tyres, and an ominous thump as an MG took on a concrete barrier.

“Whatever you do,” I suggested, “don’t do that.”

This story first appeared in the July 2024 issue of NZ Autocar magazine.