May 23, 2025 • 4 mins
Supercars coming to Christchurch.
Long time Canterbury Car Club member Lindsay Kerr, author, commentator and all round good guy spoke with Lesley about the announcement during the week that the phenomenally popular Supercars is coming to Christchurch to race around Ruapuna from 2026.
It means a lot of work is required to get the track up to speed from a safety perspective but Kerr has no doubt it will be done well in time.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, let's go out to the Canterbury Car Club because
it is fantastic that it has been officially confirmed that
Supercars twenty twenty six and for the next three years
will be coming to christ Church. And one man who
spent well over forty five years in motorsport, he's written
a book about Ruapoona. He is the course commentator out
(00:21):
there and he is our very own Lindsay Curve, Good morning, bad,
good morning to you too, well, I bet you're buzzing.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well. It's a real mixture. The emotions are pretty mixed dextally.
To achieve something like this is I won't say miracle,
but by gosh, it was certainly out there and what
we've achieved as a club is it's just absolutely wonderful.
A bit of work to do between now and when
it happened evening seems to be in place and that
it will happen.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It certainly will. And you'd think for a huge international
event like Supercars, how long has the club worked on
this initiative.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's probably over twelve months now. We've had meetings with
Supercars themselves to set the ball rolling. In fact that
they were they were very they were very teen from
the beginning to at least talk to us and christ
Church about it, and the prime thing being facilities, the
port being nearby, the track right by an international airport,
(01:15):
and the accommodation and really the whole package roll into one.
They don't like flying cars anymore of the various destinations
because of of a huge expense, and it just seemed
apparently a normal thing to look at somewhere else in
New Zealand. Littleton and christ Church ru Poona all fell
into the equations.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Well how super is that?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
What does the car club have to do to rule
a Poona for it to become an international host.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, we have our license is a fi A three license,
that's the International Motorsport body. We need to bring it
up to an FIA two category, which will involve a
lot of work to the safety of the track. That's
one of the biggest issues we have to deal with,
and there's other things like the test entrance and other
(02:06):
various jobs around the place the infrastructure itself, so it
fits into our plan. We do have a long term
plan for the facility part, and this is really phase
one that we're going to achieve between now and when
we do have the supercars, so it'll be a minimum
requirement to have supercars, but for us it is phase
(02:27):
one and what we want to achieve anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I mean, it's just reward, isn't it, because we do
know how important motorsport is to christ Church, to the
people of christ Church over various forms of it.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Oh absolutely, Leslie more than just our circuit racing. We
are you know, critis with the speedways and we have
a round of the National Rally Championship based at the
city next weekend, so it is huge. And it's also
the fact that we lost the sale GP as a city.
(03:02):
This is this is a pretty good piece of compensation
for the city actually to have this has been coming
in well, we thought that it wasn't going to happen
in the end. It's been so long since all the
discussions had taken place and nothing seemed to happen because
supercars are the ones we're going to announce it. But
it wasn't happening, and it sort of come as a
(03:24):
shock on the end.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Really, so we too from here. Can you celebrate right now?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well, we did some celebration when we year we could
put the package together in a very minor scale but yeah,
it's all going now and I think everything's planned anyway
to do what we have to do. It's a mean
of getting into it straight away and getting the work done.
The date has not been confirmed that we're not sure
(03:53):
why yet, but I guess we'll find out in due course.
And yeah, let's go for it, Christ, Let's go for it.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Oh look, I don't think you have any trouble selling
the tickets, that's for sureter Fvanster Lindsay could pass on
to all the other members of the Kenterbury Car Club
were thrilled for you and particularly thrilled for christ Church.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Thanks Leslie. For more from News Talk st B. Listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
Well, let's go out to the Canterbury Car Club because
it is fantastic that it has been officially confirmed that
Supercars twenty twenty six and for the next three years
will be coming to christ Church. And one man who
spent well over forty five years in motorsport, he's written
a book about Ruapoona. He is the course commentator out
(00:21):
there and he is our very own Lindsay Curve, Good morning, bad,
good morning to you too, well, I bet you're buzzing.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well. It's a real mixture. The emotions are pretty mixed dextally.
To achieve something like this is I won't say miracle,
but by gosh, it was certainly out there and what
we've achieved as a club is it's just absolutely wonderful.
A bit of work to do between now and when
it happened evening seems to be in place and that
it will happen.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It certainly will. And you'd think for a huge international
event like Supercars, how long has the club worked on
this initiative.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's probably over twelve months now. We've had meetings with
Supercars themselves to set the ball rolling. In fact that
they were they were very they were very teen from
the beginning to at least talk to us and christ
Church about it, and the prime thing being facilities, the
port being nearby, the track right by an international airport,
(01:15):
and the accommodation and really the whole package roll into one.
They don't like flying cars anymore of the various destinations
because of of a huge expense, and it just seemed
apparently a normal thing to look at somewhere else in
New Zealand. Littleton and christ Church ru Poona all fell
into the equations.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Well how super is that?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
What does the car club have to do to rule
a Poona for it to become an international host.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, we have our license is a fi A three license,
that's the International Motorsport body. We need to bring it
up to an FIA two category, which will involve a
lot of work to the safety of the track. That's
one of the biggest issues we have to deal with,
and there's other things like the test entrance and other
(02:06):
various jobs around the place the infrastructure itself, so it
fits into our plan. We do have a long term
plan for the facility part, and this is really phase
one that we're going to achieve between now and when
we do have the supercars, so it'll be a minimum
requirement to have supercars, but for us it is phase
(02:27):
one and what we want to achieve anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I mean, it's just reward, isn't it, because we do
know how important motorsport is to christ Church, to the
people of christ Church over various forms of it.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Oh absolutely, Leslie more than just our circuit racing. We
are you know, critis with the speedways and we have
a round of the National Rally Championship based at the
city next weekend, so it is huge. And it's also
the fact that we lost the sale GP as a city.
(03:02):
This is this is a pretty good piece of compensation
for the city actually to have this has been coming
in well, we thought that it wasn't going to happen
in the end. It's been so long since all the
discussions had taken place and nothing seemed to happen because
supercars are the ones we're going to announce it. But
it wasn't happening, and it sort of come as a
(03:24):
shock on the end.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Really, so we too from here. Can you celebrate right now?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well, we did some celebration when we year we could
put the package together in a very minor scale but yeah,
it's all going now and I think everything's planned anyway
to do what we have to do. It's a mean
of getting into it straight away and getting the work done.
The date has not been confirmed that we're not sure
(03:53):
why yet, but I guess we'll find out in due course.
And yeah, let's go for it, Christ, Let's go for it.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Oh look, I don't think you have any trouble selling
the tickets, that's for sureter Fvanster Lindsay could pass on
to all the other members of the Kenterbury Car Club
were thrilled for you and particularly thrilled for christ Church.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Thanks Leslie. For more from News Talk st B. Listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.