Driver gets nod from top team

MASTERTON driver Matt Stubbs is stepping up into serious open-wheel racing.
After five years of karting, he's currently running second in the Formula First winter series at Manfeild, and he's just heard that he's been accepted as a member of the highly-successful Sabre Motorsport team for the coming summer series.
Formula First, formerly known as Formula Vee, is an entry-level single-seater class where the emphasis is on driver skill and racecraft rather than horsepower or budget.
Because the 1200cc 180km/h cars are almost identical, close racing is a feature, and it is not unusual for the top three or four cars to finish within half a second of each other.
Some of the people who have raced Formula First on their way to greater things are Indy League champion Scott Dixon, V8 Brute racer Chris Pither, Red Bull development driver Brendan Hartley, New Zealand Grand Prix winner Simon Gamble and Formula Toyota racer Christina Orr.
Stubbs comes from a family with a 50-year motorsport heritage. His grandfather and father were both involved in motorsport and his two brothers competed with him in karts.
Matt Stubbs, 20, who is studying for a certificate in automotive electrical engineering in Wellington but still calls Masterton home, spent five years in karting, gaining some top awards in his various classes before making his Formula First debut in a leased car this winter. He was immediately on the pace, equal second after two rounds and top novice driver.
Stuart Stubbs, Matt's father, said they had two options to progress the young racer in the sport. One was to buy a car and the other was to lease. Purchase is a very expensive option, bringing with it the additional costs of maintenance, development and repair.
"We were not prepared to spend the best part of our first season competing at the back of the field while we learned how to set up these cars to suit different tracks and conditions," Stuart said.
They opted to go the "turn up and drive" leasing option, and Matt landed on his feet when he was chosen by the leading Formula First team, Sabre Motorsport, as one of their drivers. Sabre team cars have won the national series championship six times in the past 10 year, amassing 200 podium finishes along the way.
Sabre runs six cars (the number you can get on a transporter). One driver is the Speedsport magazine scholarship winner and the remaining five are chosen for their racecraft, professional attitude and potential. Funding comes from sponsorship, and the Stubbs campaign is working on that now.
The Sabre team is owned and run by Denis Martin and operates out of Palmerston North. Martin has over 30 years of single-seater racing experience and was New Zealand champion in 1993 and 1996. The Sabre cars are designed and built by Martin at the team base. In addition to the cars the team provides coaching for drivers, a tent, mechanical expertise and even meals ... they have their own mobile kitchen.
Matt Stubbs has two more rounds of the winter series, this weekend and next month, to further develop his skills (and hopefully consolidate his second place in the series) before the summer season. By then the cars will have been rebuilt, including the engines (the current ones are those from last summer) and drivers face an eight-round series starting at Taupo on October 21 and ending at Manfeild on April 1.