Karters helm Black Beauty

Matt Halliday takes second in the A1 Grand Prix. Andrew Wong / Getty Images

The kartsport community is enjoying the international profile being generated by three A1 GP test team drivers, New Zealanders Wade Cunningham, Jonny Reid and Chris Vander Drift.

The three are at Silverstone, in the English Midlands, testing Team New Zealand's A1GP car under the eye of new running team, SuperNova.

New Zealand has a rich heritage at the top level of world motorsport - Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Chris Amon - but has never had more than one or two drivers regularly making headlines.

The first indication that things might change came in 2000 when Scott Dixon, who started competing in a kart at Mt Wellington, won the Indy Lights series in the United States.

In 2003, Dixon won the Indy Racing League championship in the US and fellow KartSporter Wade Cunningham won the World Karting Championship in Italy.

Cunningham's win marked another breakthrough because it was only the second genuine FIA World Championship title won by a New Zealander, the first being Denny Hulme's World Formula One championship title in 1967.

After winning the world kart title Cunningham swapped to cars.

He won the Indy Pro Series in the United States last year and this year hopes to move up to the Indy Racing League, where Dixon is still a front-runner.

On his way up through the ranks in KartSport in New Zealand, Cunningham's sparring partner was Jonny Reid, and the two were at the forefront of a move in the late 1990s to introduce international kart racing categories.

Both won several New Zealand titles and enjoyed success in Australia, but then their paths split.

Cunningham chose to follow the kart path to Europe and Reid followed Dixon's example and moved to Formula Ford then Formula Holden here and in Australia.

With another Auckland-based kart-turned-car driver, Matt Halliday, Reid - a race winner in both the Superfund F3000 championship in Europe in 2004 and last year's All-Japan Formula Three Championship - was one of two drivers chosen to drive New Zealand's entry, Black Beauty, in the inaugural A1GP series last year.

He returns to the team for this season's second series. Because Halliday is in Australia preparing for the Sandown 500 V8 Supercar race, Reid will head the test team at Silverstone.

He will also help Cunningham and the third member of the Kiwi squad, Vander Drift, get accustomed to Black Beauty.

Vander Drift is the youngest member of the team, at 20, but has 10 years of experience. He leads the Formula Renault Eurocup Championship points standings and is considered a prospect for the sub-F1 GP2 category in Europe next year.

Vander Drift was born and brought up in Hamilton, but for the past three years has been based in Holland, where his family comes from. Of the three, he is the one with the most New Zealand karting titles to his name, having won six New Zealand sprint kart championships, six North Island sprint kart titles and the Junior ICA class title in 2001.

All three continue to kart when they get the chance. Cunningham and Vander Drift contested this year's CIK Trophy race and at the Karcher meeting, Cunningham fought off a classy field of drivers from here and Australia to add the 2006 CIK Trophy of New Zealand title to his collection.