Motorsport: Bay driver Brent Redington wins NZ championship for fifth time

Brent Redington with his cars and trophies after a series of motorsport successes. Photo / Warren Buckland

Attention to detail can pay off big time in motorsport ... just ask Hawke's Bay Car Club member Brent Redington.

Redington, of Greenmeadows, is such a perfectionist all he had to do between summers with his 1600cc Honda City was change the oil.

With everything else in tip-top condition it wasn't a surprise Redington, a veteran of 35 years in motorsport, won the New Zealand ClubSport Championship for a fifth time this month and secured an entry to a round of the Asian Gymkhana Championship to be staged in July.

"Flights, accommodation and a car will all be provided," an elated Redington said after returning from the Wairarapa Car Club-hosted championship he had previously won in 2011, '12, '13 and '17 - all in the same Honda City.

The event consisted of three individual New Zealand championships - motorkhana, autocross and bent sprint. The motorkhana section involved six different low-speed courses where competitors got two cracks at each one.

Their fastest times on each were added together to determine the discipline winner and Redington won by nine seconds. Like the motorkhana, the autocross was staged on grass.

It involved one Indian File run and three timed runs of one test, with the fastest timed run counting towards results.

Redington finished 0.07s off the winning time. The bent sprint used a similar format to the autocross and was staged on a closed public gravel road at Carterton.

This event attracted extra entries and Redington, who became the first driver to win all three disciplines at the same championship in 2012, finished third overall behind drivers in a Mitsubishi Evo 6 and a Subaru STI Impreza.

Redington scored 299.85 points out of a possible 300 and his nearest rival scored 288.

He will receive the Molesworth Trophy at the Motorsport New Zealand Awards Dinner in Wellington on May 25.

In addition to his attention to detail Redington, a Mainfreight owner-driver in Napier, said several other factors contributed to his success.

"I've taken a gap year off work so I've been able to get plenty of seat time which always helps. I've also got to give a lot thanks to the Hawke's Bay Car Club who ran similar type of events on the same surfaces before the Wairarapa event so we could test the car and make sure everything was spot on.

"The club is doing well in terms of members, particularly youth, so there is plenty of competition here in the Bay."

Redington has also experienced similar success in his 4 litre V8-powered streetstock on the national speedway scene this summer.

He won the Hawke's Bay championship for the fourth time in five years, the Wellington championship and in December finished third at the Rotorua-hosted nationals.

He has no intention of easing up in both forms of motorsport hobbies.

"I've got plenty of years left in me yet. I like to race every weekend and will continue to work hard to keep producing these sort of results."

Unlike a lot of top performers in motorsport Redington doesn't do any gym work to enhance his endurance levels behind the wheel.

"I just rely on seat time to keep me in shape," he said.

Redington will be among the streetstock drivers chasing the Pam Gibson Memorial Trophy at Saturday night's meeting at Meeanee. It will be up for grabs in the last race for his class.

"I've won that trophy once before and it will be good to win it this weekend as it's my 50th birthday on Saturday."

The feature event at the meeting will be the Kuru Cup for stockcars.

It will be interesting to see if the Hawke's Bay drivers allow an out-of-towner to win one of the heaviest pieces of silverware on the New Zealand Speedway scene for the second consecutive year. Wellingtonian Josh Prentice won it last year.

The meeting will also include the Best Pairs for ministocks, the East Coast championship for saloons and a demolition derby. Sidecars will provide the support class action.