Motorsport: Murph wants V8 Supercars to stay in NZ

Greg Murphy. Photo / APN

Race driver Greg Murphy says that retaining a V8 Supercars championship event in New Zealand is an absolute priority for the sport.

The four-time Bathurst winner is confident that another city will be secured to host the New Zealand leg of the championship, following news that the 2012 Hamilton street race event will be the last.

Murphy will line up alongside Danish driver Allan Simonsen in the Kelly Racing's Holden Commodore at the Bathurst 1000 at Mt Panorama this weekend.

"It must be an absolute priority to keep a race in New Zealand and I know that V8 Supercars is thinking the same way as well," said Murphy.

"There has been a very successful event of the championship in New Zealand for quite some time.

"There are so many people in New Zealand who support the sport in a big way.

"It's been so popular among Kiwis for such a long time that it's clearly an integral part of the future of the sport to keep racing in New Zealand.

"Hamilton might be done and dusted after 2012 but I'm 99.9 per cent confident that there will be another event following on from that pretty quickly.

"I think Auckland is the area that has to be looked at. You need population and it's been proved that the key for street races is that you have to have the people. You need to take the racing to the people.

"We tried to do that in Hamilton but there are a few things that probably got in the way of it. I think it's just proven that effectively if you want a successful street race you have got to have the people.

"Even though Hamilton is not far from Auckland it just didn't provide what was necessary to give the event the boost it needed to survive.

"North of the Bombay Hills is where a lot of the people are in New Zealand and it's my belief that the Auckland area is where we need to look to for a new event."