Motorsport: T20 style motorsport for NZ

Hampton Downs will host Fast and Furious Racing this summer. Photo / Photosport

Many sports have tried it but now motorsport is the latest to have a crack at a T20 version of their code.

Hampton Downs owner Tony Quinn will introduce Kiwi fans to Fast and Furious Racing this summer - his high action version of motor racing where spectators get all the energy and action of the opening laps mixed with a safety car intervention and a mad dash to the finish.

Strategy, fuel conservation and tyre preservation are terms that are irrelevant in Fast and Furious Racing and it has the potential to keep an audience on the edge of their seats like no other form of the sport.

It would see an entire grid of cars start in the usual manner, race for three laps before a safety car intervenes and bunches the field up again. The safety car pulls into the pits after one lap and the cars begin a second three-lap battle off a rolling start.

"It's like sex - it is over and done with before you know it," Quinn told The Herald. "We would award 50 percent of the points for the first three laps and then the remaining 50 percent for the second three laps."

Quinn was a spectator at the New Zealand Grand Prix a couple of years ago when he first came up with the concept. He was sitting on the grass embankment at Manfeild as a regular paying spectator watching an NZ V8 race. While the opening couple of laps were exciting as cars jostled for position, once the order had been established the race became a bit of a precession and he started losing interest. Then came a safety car and the field bunched up and racing got exciting again.

"It probably appeals more to the beginner level really but it could go all the way up through the classes," Quinn said.

"If you look at a V8 race the start is always exciting - the first couple of the laps with guys like Shane van Gisbergen coming through - it is always exciting but then it settles down. This will be all-action the whole way."

And Quinn knows if the idea works - pretty soon every category will be doing it.

"If it is a success everyone else will be doing it and claiming it as their idea and if it doesn't people will say knew it wasn't going to work."

Fast and Furious Racing will make its debut at the Laser Plumbing & Electrical Hampton Down 500 in the last weekend of October before a second round will take place at Mad Mike's Summer Bash in December.

How it works
•Cars qualify like normal and start the race off the grid as per usual.
•After three laps a safety car is deployed and cars bunch up for one lap before the safety car pulls away
•A rolling start begins another three-lap dash to the finish
•Points are split 50-50 between the two segments of the race
•Each category partakes in four races in a round
•Race one grid determined by qualifying positons. Race two reverse grid. Race three is determined by combined times from race 1 & 2 and race four will again be reverse grid
•Competitors will score points based on where they finish in each of the four races