The Barry Sheene Trans-Tasman Challenge

The New Zealand team won the recent Barry Sheene Festival of Speed at Eastern Creek and the Australians are coming back to Hampton Down this Labour weekend to see if they can grab the trophy on our home soil.

This year the holiday weekend falls a week later so Friday 25th will be the practise day, qualifying early on Saturday morning with racing thereafter and through to Sunday followed by prizegiving and a proposed social that evening. This will give race fans, competitors and crews they holiday Monday to travel home. Looking at the stats from last year neary 50% of the teams came from south of hampton Downs so its a good call by the organizing team.

All the accomodation at the Hampton Downs apartments was booked out primarliy by the Australians when they left last year so try the motel at Mercer, Pokeno, Tuakau Hotel or Pukekohe. There is very strong interest from Australia from competitors following the success of the first event at Hampton in 2012 and it looks like more than two container loads of bikes and sidecars will be coming from Australia. The big names will be announced once they are confirmed and news of the event will unfold on this website plus through our NZ motorcycle press, Motorcycle Trader & News, Kiwi Rider and Bike Rider in the coming months.

New Zealand won the Barry Sheene Trans Tasman Challenge 469 to 436 in an action packed weekend. On the Australian side Cam Donald, Robbie Phillis and Glen Hindle won all their races a few machine failures gave the Kiwis the key opening they needed to take the other classes and the bulk of the other podium positions. The sport of classic and post-classic racing was the real winner though as the party of over sixty Australian guests had a great trip and enjoyed our hospitality, but not so much the weather. Next year Labour Weekend is a week later on the calender with Labour Monday on October 28th. The preliminary de-brief meetings between the BSTT Committee representatives of the three NZ organizing clubs have all agreed to run the meeting on that weekend. But this will be confirmed by Xmas as each club committee must ratify the decision.
For full race results go to www.marktime.co.nz showing all rap times and race results.

The machine pictured was just one of a number of exotic machines on display over the weekend. Tristan Tolley with the 1991 Honda RC30 750cc machine. The RC30 V4 90 degree powered machine was hand-built by HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) and was a street legal race machine. While it was approximately twice the price of the standard VFR model it was a  race bike that was both reliable and rideable for everyday use, features that surprised the press and riders of the day.  

The largest International Road Race meeting in NZ's history, surpassing the Marlboro Series, is how the Barry SheeneTrans Tasman Chalenge panned out. That put a community of between 1,000 to 1200 people in the pits as family and pitcrews helped their riders or swingers, all enthusiasts of older motorcycles. And there was tons of variety  amongst the machinery entered and people kept saying, I havent seen you in 30 years, this is just like old times as familiar faces bumped into each other as fellow competitors, pits crews or fans that just wandered up. And here's a couple of World Superbike friends waiting in the coffee line, close mates in fact, Arron Slight and Robbie Phillis. Caption;  

A step back in time with this photo showing a probable Senior Production field of mostly Kawasaki H2 I am guessing, at least one big 4 cyclinder 4 stoke #184 a Z900 Kawasaki and #40 is a Triumph T140V onneville 750. The faded caption reads Murray McLaughlin #296 on a 500 who managed 5th place. He went on to win the Castol 6hr 350 class with Mike Pero. The corner looks like the one at the Police Station as the Rootes Group building in the backgound was near new and I think had gone up since the Porirua Grand Prix racing had started a few years earlier. In 1978 of course we arrived for a days racing but in the practise period the Police cancelled the meeting, deeming the new longer street circuit too dangerous as an out of control sidecar had gone off the track during practise and killed a member of the public. And I understand it bought the once strong Ixion Motorcycle Club of Wellington to its knees finacially. The club had started in 1926 and became famous for its Peka Peka Beach Racing on the Kapiti Coast, but in the last few decades has only run Observed and Moto Trials.