Matt Hamilton: Veteran Kart racer previews the Garden City Championships

With Liam Lawson landing a Formula 1 seat for the Racing Bulls, our Kiwi motorsport drivers are in the spotlight.

Many of our current champions come from a karting background, and this weekend will see the Garden City Championships take place at Carrs Road Raceway.

Veteran karter Matthew Hamilton joined Lesley Murdoch to explain what we can expect from a quality field of drivers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International motorsport driver and coach Matt Hamilton. He has enjoyed
great success in circuit racing and cart sport, both in
New Zealand and overseas. He's a thirteen time at least
national karting champion and has had clearly great success overseas.
He joined us Matt, good.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Morning, Good morning, how are you very good?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thanks? Now the cart Sport Gardens City Championships. You had
practice yesterday and it's over today and tomorrow right here
in the city.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yes, it is. So this is our biggest reason for
the Earth of Parts kind of clubs. Yeah, really exciting.
Lots of people from away, young people from even as
far as Australia. So very exciting for us to have
the circus come to town to the last round of
the mainland series, which people have been doing throughout the year. Yeah.

(00:50):
So it's you know, the weather is looking great. You know,
we've got lots of competitors, over eighty competitors here racing
and from anywhere from six years old to sixty six
years old. So yeah, it's looking like it's going to
be a great weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Sixty six that's fantastic cart sport.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
So Southlandonda, Nelson, Marlborough and as you mentioned, it finishes
off here for twenty twenty four now, you know, to
put into context Liam Lawson and him getting the nod
for Formula one drive, that's where he started kart sport,
wasn't it, And a whole lot of others Marcus Armstrong,
Scott Dixon, Young Louis Sharp coming through the ranks.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yes, for sure. So it wasn't very long ago that
the likes of Liam Lawson was racing here and then
now I've watched him Racist Macavn and Nelson as well.
Obviously Marcus Armstrong started his career here is where he
grew up learning the ropes. Yeah, and then and then
yeah in recent times, LUs Sharp, Jacob Douglas and a

(01:50):
lot of racing overseas. Yeah, we've got some great talent
coming out of the small club and these are the
sort of meetings where you learn your craft if you
want to be a big star. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Absolutely. So when you look at it, is there somebody
this weekend that is going to emerge maybe in a
couple of years time, and being that a very illustrious
group that we've mentioned.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
It could be.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
You know, there's a heap of them really. You know,
you've got the three time New Zealand champion, Zach Tucker,
who's in the junior division, along with Henry Fisher who
has got mate from Canbury as well. He's a two
New Zealand champion. And then you have the likes of
Iver Spent who's a two time New Zealand champion and
he's still on eighteen years old. So you know, we

(02:39):
certainly have a lot of talent here that we're very
lucky and Catswal Canterbury. Over the years we've produced some
great drivers and I think this year is no exception.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
And your dad John's been instrumental in that as well, right.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, I guess. So he started racing the seventies and
he's yeah, thirty two times he launchampions, he's got the record. Yeah,
and he'll be out here today, is seventy eight years young,
but he'll be out here. Are students for me? Yeah,
which is really cool?

Speaker 1 (03:12):
And what are your aspirations met now with your career?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Well, I'm forty one now, so I'm just really really
loving the karting. In a couple of weeks time, I
head off to Italy for two of the biggest meetings
in the world View, which is really exciting. So yeah,
I guess I'm racing this weekend to sort of us
some training to get a race for it, and then yeah,

(03:39):
we head off and once again there it'll be my
Spider Man over there. My Mum's coming to support as well,
so it's really really exciting.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
What speeds will they get up to in the Garden
City Champs this weekend?

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Some of the six speed one two five shifter cats
the fifty horse so they'll be doing a short our
straits pretty short is about one hundred meters, but they'll
be doing around about one hundred and forty k's an
hour at the end of the strait. So when you're
going into a corner like that with a field of
twenty carts, it's yeah, it gets pretty exciting.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Oh I was going to say scary.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Actually yeah, a little a little bit, but yeah, it's
just it's so cool and it'll be it's a great
spectator sport. There's so much action happening all the time,
so yeah, it'll be a real treat per spectators.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh absolutely, So people can come down.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Is it cars road, Yes, cars road this way and
it's yeah, just in Horsal French and there's shops here
with lunch available and stuff, so yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Come on down.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Well A fantastic Clearly a very very important part of
the motorsport scene is what happens in carts sport, like
I know that the passion oozes out of people. We
had Christian O'Malley and I think he's your treasurer during
the week and you could just see the love that
he had for the sport and clearly we can hear
your passion for as well, and we just want to
wish you all the very best to have a great
series this weekend, but also take care when you get

(05:05):
overseas as well.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
I appreciate that. Thank you so much for me And what.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Time do the races start today and tomorrow?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Racing's from AMM.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Fantastic Matthew Hamilton, thank you go well.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Thank you very much. Tim. For more from News Talks
ed B listen live on air or online, and

Speaker 1 (05:23):
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