Motorsport: Legend Millen's Leadfoot power party

Photo / Alastair Ritchie

Today the usually peaceful Coromandel will echo to the sounds of some of the most serious motorsport machinery ever assembled in New Zealand.

But there's bad news, race fans, the collection of hillclimb weapons, rally cars and classics is here for an exclusive invite-only event put on by Kiwi motorsport legend Rod Millen.

Partly to celebrate his 60th birthday and, partly "because I can" Millen has repaved a 1.6km section of his driveway, turning it into an undulating hillclimb stage that takes its cues from the famous British Goodwood Festival of Speed.

"I'd like it to be like Goodwood," Millen told nzherald.co.nz, "but on a really small scale".

Invited guests have come from around the country and the world and include Rod's sons - Ryan and Rhys, Hollywood stunt driver and drift champion, Pikes Peak racer Paul Dallenbach, Porsche driver Jeff Zwart, Alan Woolf, Allan Kemp and Kiwi rally driver Andrew Hawkeswood.

Amongst the machinery running up what has to be the ultimate driveway is Millen's Toyota Celica that held the outright record at the iconic Pikes Peak hillclimb for 12 years, his Toyota Tundra stadium truck, a Dallenbach hillclimer, a handful of classic Ford Escorts - from BDA-powered to a stonking V8, a Ford GT40, a Subaru Leone RX once campaigned by late rally hero Possum Bourne and hyper-rare Porsche 914-6.

Millen has appropriately called the event the Leadfoot Festival, and he intends to make it a regular fixture.

For more information and photos from today's event, check here on Sunday.