Lundy race is going too far

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

Most people would agree that there's a blurred line between a bit of fun and a bit of bad taste.

It's a moveable feast which comedians have happily tucked into over the years.

But Wanganui man Nic Miller is a clown who is running out of laughs.

There surely cannot be many people out there who do not feel at least some revulsion at his exploitative scheme of a novelty race over the route Mark Lundy allegedly used when murdering his wife Christine and daughter Amber.

The prosecution said that in August 2000, Lundy had checked into a Petone motel to set up an alibi before racing to his Palmerston North home to bludgeon his wife and 7-year-old daughter and then speeding back to Petone.

In 2002, he was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The killings were particularly brutal and the decision by the Privy Council this month to quash the convictions and set Lundy free will have added to the distress of his late wife's family.

Now Mr Miller's "sense of fun" will be upping that distress a few notches.

He says it wasn't his intention to further upset them ... and in the next breath acknowledges that he knew his hare-brained race project - the Lundy Three Hundy - would do just that.

It's not just the race that is in bad taste, it is Mr Miller's childish justifications - Lundy rhymes with hundy; Mark Lundy is "marketable"; "He's more like the guy in a buddy-cop comedy who saves the day with his bumbling actions"; he's like "the crazy drunk uncle who always comes round at Christmas".

Whether Mark Lundy is innocent or guilty is irrelevant - this race is beyond the pale.