Church overflows for Supercar driver's farewell

Craig Baird comforts Adrienne and Flynn Porter, wife and son of Mark Porter at Porter's funeral. Picture / Sarah Ivey

An up-and-coming V8 Supercar driver with a penchant for Led Zeppelin and marshmallows took his final ride in Hamilton yesterday, a week after being involved in a tragic crash at Bathurst, Australia, which took his life two days later.

Mark Porter, 31, leaves behind his young wife Adrienne and 1-year-old son Flynn.

Unsteady on her feet, the distraught widow - carrying a single red rose - was escorted down the aisle by family members as she followed her late husband's coffin into an overflowing church yesterday.

The coffin displayed the red, yellow and black colours of Waikato, with Porter's V8 Supercar race number, 111, emblazoned along the sides.

The pall bearers wore the racing team's yellow uniform.

A friend carried Porter's helmet, gloves, and racing boots behind, as Led Zeppelin's Kashmir played over the sound system.

A video of highlights from the race driver's short V8 Supercar career was played, followed by a five-minute slide show of family photos.

During the service an uncle, Murray Porter, described his nephew as a man who was passionate about his friends and family, the family business, and motorsport.

From an early age Mark wanted to drive a rotary engined car, he said. When he got his first car, a white Ford Escort van, he purposely drove it hard in first gear and blew up the motor.

He told his mother Robyn that his next car would be a rotary and eventually he ended up owing six of them.

Younger brother Simon Porter spoke of an intense rivalry the pair had, recalling many bouts of competitive Jonah Lomu video games. "I ended up chasing him down the road with a pitchfork," he said.

He spoke fondly of their relationship, remembering his brother for his mischievous smile and love of BMX bikes, motorbikes, boats and cars.

The Porter family runs the largest hire business in the southern hemisphere, leasing out a fleet of hundreds of heavy machinery vehicles.

Many of the company's 380 employees were at yesterday's funeral.

Toward the end of the service, the gathering was told of hundreds of messages of condolences that had come in over the past week, from the Four Square owner down the road, to the Prime Minister in Wellington.

Helen Clark's message of sympathy was read out.

"Mark would have loved that," commented a family friend.

Outside sat a replica of the V8 car that Mark drove last week at Mt Panorama.

The funeral was attended by a number of Supercar drivers, including Greg Murphy, Craig Baird, Kayne Scott, Jason Richards, Mark Halliday, Fabian Coulthard and Tony D'Alberto.

A further 600 people gathered afterward to watch the hearse take Mark away on his final journey through the streets of his hometown.

After the funeral the family sent out a statement thanking the people who had sent flowers and expressed their condolences.

"Your messages of shared loss and grief have been a comfort to us.

"We are comforted to know that the qualities that we loved so much in Mark were recognised by so many.

"He has gone from our lives, but not from our hearts."