Tristian Teki and his championship-winning Chevrolet Camaro "The Batmobile". Photo / Bevan Conley
Tristian Teki and his championship-winning Chevrolet Camaro "The Batmobile". Photo / Bevan Conley
Whanganui racer Tristan Teki and his team didn’t let a blown engine stop them from winning a Group One championship in the Central Muscle Cars race series.
He claimed the title over ex-professional drivers like Angus Fogg and Andy Knight and teams with higher budgets and more supplies, which hesaid made it feel like even more of an achievement.
“We’re a bit of the underdogs, the old Whanganui boy, so yeah it’s pretty cool,” he said.
The Central Muscle Cars is a race series comprised of Australian and American classic muscle cars from 1958 to 1978 modified for circuit racing.
“It’s basically old cars, and they’ve pretty much taken them, put heaps more horsepower in them, bigger brakes and they race them as a series,” he said.
It’s comprised of two groups of cars, with Group Two cars being closer to a street car, while Group One allows for more extreme modifications and engines making around 900 horsepower.
“We’re much faster in a straight line than a [V8] Supercar but obviously we don’t handle like a Supercar, so it makes the series quite exciting as a driver because the cars are all over the place,” he said.
Teki previously won a Group Two championship in a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro RS/SS he had imported and rebuilt in Whanganui.
His Group One car is another 1969 Camaro, with this one powered by a 360 cubic inch naturally aspirated V8 taken from a 1996 Nascar, making around 800 horsepower.
Dubbed “The Batmobile”, it also has a distinctive livery which Teki said was inspired by his kids.
“One day at Manfeild I said, ‘Who’s got the best car here?’ thinking they’d say ‘Dad’ and they said ‘Lightning McQueen’ and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ Someone had their car done up as Lightning McQueen.”
The Batmobile Camaro deploying a celebrator smokescreen after winning the series.
The kids helped design the Batman theme, with Display Associates printing and applying the wrap to the car, which immediately started turning heads.
“We’ve had a huge following of kids, at the Supercar rounds we were having to sign stuff and do giveaways,” he said.
However, the team very nearly didn’t make the start of the season at all, with the parts they’d ordered to finish a new engine not arriving in the country and the old engine blown up.
He said race mechanics Landon Brothers came to the rescue, fixing the severely damaged motor for the team to compete this year.
“And the engine went untouched the whole season and it’s a big reason why we won the championship,” he said.
With his car around 100hp down compared to field frontrunners, Teki said he won the series thanks to consistent top-five placings and finishing every race of the season.
This was crucial as the amount of power the cars make meant the engines were very highly strung and the internals are put under a lot of stress during the races.
With his rivals suffering mechanical faults, Teki only had to finish the last two races at Hampton Downs to claim the championship.
“The car had actually blown a head gasket and was using water, the engine was still fine but normally we’d just stop and get the head gasket replaced, but we didn’t have a head gasket, so we just cruised around slowly to take out the championship.”
He said they’ll be back next season and hopefully with a new engine, which should have the team fighting for more wins.
He thanked his team, particularly Chris Barry and his wife Joanne and his sponsors Napa Auto Parts, 1st Auto Parts, NZV8, Hankook Tyres, Schwartz Tyres, Woody Tyres and Landon Brothers for their engine work.
