Mark Skaife: motorsport commentator ahead of the upcoming Supercars race in Taupo

Matthew Payne and Ryan Wood provided the Kiwi highlights on the first day of Supercars racing in Taupō on Saturday.

Ryan scored his third first and Wood his first third in the afternoon’s opening sprint race.

Motorsport commentator Mark Skaife joined Piney to discuss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Five time VA Supercar Champion, six time Bathurst one thousand winner,
now motorsport commentator Mark skafers with us. Mark, thanks for
taking time in a very busy schedule to join us
on ZIB. How strong a favorite is Brody Kosticki on
the evidence of the top ten.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Shootout, Well, you'd have to say he's going to be
the man to beat starting from poll, but there's a
fair few guys right in behind him there. So Anthon
Deepasquali alongside young Ryan Wood starts right in behind Brody,
So I'm sure all the kiwis will be urging Brian
to get down to the first corner and be able

(00:47):
to be aggressive and hopefully get some reasonable track position
through the field. Obviously you've got Matt payin in six
and Heimgartner in eighth for the kiwis. But yeah, I
think Brody's going to take a fair bit of beating.
I mean, he made an unforced area yesterday when he
come into the pit crash into the tires on the
right hand side. It did quite a lot of damage.

(01:10):
He and Chas Moss. It turned on a real show
for us yesterday with a battle for the lead. So
if he can just get down to the first corner
and stay out of trouble. Remember we've got two compulsory
pit stops today, so there would be a bit more
action in the pits today as well as it being
a longer race in terms of what the tie does
for a longer period of time.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
As you say, we'd love a good hometown result. Ryan
just twenty one years old. How do you like Ryan
Woo's driving?

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Look? I think he's driving really well. Anytime that you
can outqualify Chas Moss that you've always done a really
good job. He's aggressive, he doesn't look like he's overawed
by the occasion. I was impressed with him here last
year in the rain. He continues to improve. He's a
champion in the making for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
What have you made of the Toepoor track? Do you
like the race track?

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I love it. It's really compact, It's got a really
good mix up slow and fast corners on the racing line.
It's got thirty different surfaces. So on a new tie
this weekend. A lot of the teams have really struggled
to make the car nice on the new surface versus
the old surface, and it's the same for everybody. I
mean it means that, you know, everyone's got to deal
with the same thing. So no, I really like it.

(02:24):
I think it's reminiscent of the old Orange Park in Sydney.
The cars look and feel very similar to that. They
use a lot of curb and the cars move around
a lot, so the cars look fantastic on this layout.
All right.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Just to finish word that there will be two supercar's
legs and New Zealand next year. Christ it's reportedly being added.
Would two legs in New Zealand be a popular move?
Do you think in Australia.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Look, there's been a lot of conjecture about doing this
for a long time. There's a couple of real benefits.
When you have two races in New Zealand, you can
amortize the costs across two events, so that makes sense
commercially and economically. I think for New Zealand tourism it
would be a real shot in the arm because that
means that the length of visitations for people coming from
Australia around the world to come into New Zealand. They're

(03:11):
in New Zealand for longer. They get to see more
of the beautiful landscape and the beautiful natural features of
the country, and overall it gives us another event which
we used to do too. If you remember in the
older days, the Nist and Noble five hundred was a
race on the streets of Wellington and then a race
up at Polakoi. So we used to spend basically a

(03:33):
two week period in New Zealand and I think for
everybody that's the desired outcoming. Let's hope we can make
it make it work.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
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