Track thrills in scale supercars

YOU could be forgiven for thinking the Aussies V8 supercars had come to town. The rakish, ground-hugging Holdens and Fords look the part with their garish paint jobs and advertising decals.
It's only when you get closer you realise they are a lot smaller than the supercars ? 5/8ths of the size, in fact.
Unclip and remove the front bodywork, lift the rest of the fibreglass body and you find yourself looking at a tidy aluminium-lined spaceframe chassis with the driver's seat on the left and a motorcycle engine up front.
They are STAR Touring Cars, and they reckon they are the coming thing in New Zealand motorsport. The Taupo-built chassis are identical ? you choose a body to suit your taste ? so results to a large degree come down to driver ability. The engines are controlled, oil-cooled Suzuki 1100 or 1200cc, and so are the exhausts, shocks, hubs, discs, steering rack, tyres and rims, seat and body panels. Standard, the engines deliver around 130hp at the wheels.
Motorsport NZ insists on a reverse gear for race cars, and this is achieved on the STAR by a ring gear cut around a rear brake disc and a starter motor. Very ingenious.
If you're up to the job you can expect to circulate the Taupo race circuit in 43 seconds and Manfeild in 1m 20s, reaching speeds up to 230km/h on the way. By comparison, the lighter sidecar rigs are only three seconds faster around Manfeild.
There are now nearly 30 STAR touring cars in New Zealand (Australia has a similar series), and about half that number turn up for a typical raceday. Because the cars are identical racing is close and exciting.
Masterton man Spike Taylor, better known for his sidecar racing heroics, was given a ride in a STAR (Small Time Auto Racing) car at Taupo four years ago. At the time he was looking to move on from the sidecars, but the other option, Formula Challenge, was too expensive.
"I loved it immediately," he said. Particularly appealing was the sturdy safety cage ? at that time he was still recovering from an horrific crash at Taupo. Back on the sidecar, he realised just how exposed those competitors are.
"I would have sold the sidecar there and then," Taylor said. He didn't, and went on to become NZ sidecar champion.
A couple of weeks ago he announced his retirement and talked about getting into some other form of motorsport. About the same time Phil Milne was looking to sell his Falcon-bodied 2003 STAR car. It had raced in 2003, was rebuilt for last season and finished 4th in the winter series and 5th in the summer competition.
Taylor hopes to debut it at Manfeild on September 10 and 11, and there's another meeting at Taupo the following weekend. There's also a Formula Ford festival coming up at Ruapuna. He probably won't make it to that meeting.
Taylor retains the support of long-time sponsor Western Auto Mart.