Frequently drivers will put together half a good lap - say from the start/finish line through to the back straight or from the hairpin to the start/finish line - but achieving a perfect full lap can be elusive.
It's not a place for the faint-hearted: there are two heavy braking points each lap - for the hairpin and for the S-curve - and the rest is taken at full or near-full throttle, including the hard turn-in to the sweeper off the pit straight; a bend taken at full noise, the imagination switched off and an absolute faith that there won't be a car spun-up around the blind corner.
It's a track the Aussie V8 Supercar drivers loved. They relished the challenge.
Pukekohe is also the spiritual home of the New Zealand Grand Prix and was born of the need to find a new home for the 1963 NZGP.
From the mid-1950s into the early 60s, the Grand Prix was run on a temporary circuit on the World War II airbase at Ardmore, east of Papakura.
But in 1962 planes returned to Ardmore because the aero club field at Mangere was being developed into Auckland's international airport.
The site for a new motor racing venue was found at the Franklin Racing Club's horse racetrack on the outskirts of Pukekohe, about 50km south of Auckland.
It was estimated the track would cost about $120,000.
The Grand Prix club had about a quarter of that in the kitty. They found the rest through debentures, interest-free loans, donations and civil engineering company W. Stevenson and Sons, which built the track and put in about $30,000.
Work began in the spring of 1962, but was hampered by bad weather, and eventually the Grand Prix club took over the track a week before race day.
Three current, past or future world champions were on the grid on January 5, 1963 - the 1962 champion Graham Hill in the front-engined four-wheel drive Ferguson P99, the 1959-60-66 champion Jack Brabham in a Brabham BT4, and former motorcycle world champion John Surtees in a Lola (he won the Formula 1 title for Ferrari in 1964).
But most of the crowd of 43,000 had eyes for only one driver, Kiwi Bruce McLaren in a lightweight Cooper T62 he had developed from the works T60 F1 car. Also at the sharp end of the field were South African Tony Maggs in the second works Lola, entered by the Bowmaker Team, and Wellingtonian Tony Shelly in a Lotus, fresh from a season doing F1 races in Europe.
Top local talent included Angus Hyslop (Cooper); Jim Palmer, having John Surtees, left, jumps ahead of Bruce McLaren in the NZ Grand Prix of 1963.
Sir Jack Brabham John SurteesJim PalmerBruce McLarenChris Amon John Surtees won the first New Zealand Grand Prix held at Pukekohe in 1963.
his first run in a big-engined car, the Bowmaker outfit's spare Cooper; and Chris Amon in another Cooper.
McLaren put the Cooper on pole but got too much wheelspin at the start and Surtees surged into a lead he lost only briefly to McLaren before the Cooper began misfiring and eventually retired with magneto problems.
Brabham did his race chances no favours by becoming one of the first drivers to fly off the track and down the bank at the hairpin. He rejoined, only to retire later with a blown head gasket on the 2.7-litre Climax.
With McLaren's retirement, the race was effectively over, and Surtees led the remaining 72 laps to win the first NZ Grand Prix run at Pukekohe.
Hyslop took over second after Hill's Ferguson stopped on the final lap. Hill drove the race with a "crash" gearbox after the 4WD racer lost its clutch and then first gear.
Palmer finished third and Amon was seventh and last, completing 44 of the 75 laps after pitting several times with ignition woes.
But he had shown early signs of the class that was to take him to the top of world motor racing in subsequent years.
After gridding the indifferent Cooper seventh, he made a blinding start to be third on the charge down to the elbow, and ran fifth in the early laps.
The 1963 NZGP was scarcely a great race with which to christen the country's newest racetrack, but it did open the way, and over the next four decades this so-called "bland and boring" circuit was to host some truly memorable international races.
