The story of the 2009 John Andrew Ford & Mazda

Kids in Cars Track Day.

 

The idea around kids in cars is basically to get Kids In Cars.

K.I.C. hosts this day for Camp Quality, this is a non-profit organisation that holds two camps per year, for children living with cancer. The camp comprises a short 3 day winter camp and a week long summer camp. For the past 5 years K.I.C. has hosted this day for Camp Quality, in which all the children get a fun day at the track with all rides both track and amusement are free for them and their families. This year there were approximately 300 Camp Quality people there, not to mention about 1500 + general public.

 

The 2009 John Andrew Ford & Mazda – Kids in Cars track day was held at Pukekohe Park Race Way on the 4^th January.

We started the day at 6.00 am Sunday morning – after setting up on Saturday in the rain, but the KIC attitude was one of “ don’t worry she’ll be right on the day” – Sunday morning was perfect. Thanks to the weather Gods.

 

The drivers starting arriving at around 7.00 am, and we knew we were in for a great day.

 

K.I.C. 2009 was lucky this year to secure not only several celebrity drivers, but a huge range of exotic and race cars – not forgetting the huge turnout of truckers.

The line up of celebrity driver included – Racing Ray Williams – K.I.C.’s ambassador, Ray holds to date, 8 New Zealand land speed records in his Porsche. Ray cancelled his race meeting at Taupo to attend the event. He was driving the Holden Monaro 640h/p TARGA car – this vehicle was lent to KIC once again by Hamish Paterson from Paterson Trading.

 Andrew Anderson, Andrew drove a NZV8 for the ITM PinePac Holden racing team. Angus Fogg, Angus drives the LG NZ NZV8 Falcon. John Udy, John drove a 560hp twin turbo Holden Monaro drift car and not to forget our special guest for the day one Shane Van Gisbergen, Shane is the driver for Stone Brothers in Australia in the V8 Supercar series.

   
       

 James 'Huggi' Urquhart , James drives the Wild Card Racing - Commodore VE - #45. Wild man Jacko driving the Wards demolition NZV8  Holden Ute. We also had the A1GP car of Black Beauty there on the day, many thanks to all the crew at Fisher & Paykel.

Also we had loads of fun rides donated from The Event Fun Company, as well as Formula E go carts, and a F1 Simulator.

 

This event had some celebrities who were a hit not only for the little kids but the big kids to. Lee Donahue, who plays Hunter from Shortland St and an old crowd favorite Constable Keith and Sniff the dog, Constable Keith and Sniff (who flew up from Christchurch) put on a lunch time show for the crowd.

 

The day proceeds with four grids of both cars and trucks – I think the highlight of the trucks is the ex LA Fire truck – this unit is a huge crowd pleaser. The vehicles take members from Camp quality and the general public for three laps around Pukekohe Park Race Way, and the rotation carries on all day....... never an empty car or truck....

 

During the course of the day K.I.C. runs a Mothers car and truck show & shine, raffles and sells rides for both track rides and amusement rides, not to mention the sausage sizzles and tonnes of cold drinks........ It was a hot day.

 

All the track ride speeds are limited to 110 k/hr, this is controlled by both the CVIU police unit and the NZIPG (NZ International Grand Prix) the drivers are briefed at the start of the event and are told about the speed limit. This is not to say that we don’t have a special grid for fully fledged race cars – this is a closed grid were the cars can push the limits and top the 250 k/hr plus speed down the back straight.

 

 

The biggest crowd drawer this year for the hot laps was again Ray Williams and the five exotic cars, Two Lamborghini Murcilago‘s, a GT3 Porsche an S2000 Honda and Ariel Atom – not to mention the 6 TARGA cars, two NZ v8’s, two Holden Manaro’s, one TARGA Car and one drift car – lots of raw horse power there and the huge range of road cars.

 

Dale King Building Supplies T/A PlaceMakers Pakuranga has been a Gold Sponsor of this event now for the past five years and KIC wish to thank Dale King and all the staff of the Pakuranga branch for all their support that they have given to KIC.

 

K.I.C. raised $11,000 on the day. Some of the funds raised this year are to be donated to several other charities in the south Auckland area, K.I.C. are looking into different charities in which to donate to.

KIC wish to thank all the sponsors that helped make this day what it was.

 

John Andrew Ford & Mazda , PlaceMakers Pakuranga , LG NZ , Air New Zealand , Leonard’s Small Goods Wilson Hellaby , Copthorne Hotel Auckland , Compulink , Nestle NZ , NZV8 Magazine , Mothers , Patterson Trading , Big FM ,Hubbard’s , NZ Fire Service,NZ Police(CVIU) ,Hella NZ

Rhino Fencing,Columbus Coffee, Punch Marketing, BNZ, Mr Whippy, National Road Carriers,Pukekohe Park Raceway & United Video.

 

For more information on our upcoming events, please have a look at our Webb site www.kic.org.nz .

We would love to hear from you if you would like to be involved with this fun day for these very special kids.

 

See you all in 2010

 

Kind regards

 

Nigel Karl

Founder kids in cars.