15/05/2022

RAIN STOPS PLAY AT TAUPO ON SUNDAY.

No racing today with the track awash.

In a rare case of ‘rain literally stopping play’ at a motor racing meeting here in New Zealand, the 2021/22 SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series has ended up being called two races early after heavy rain on Saturday night and on Sunday morning left parts of the Taupo track at which the final round of the popular NZ-based historic single seater category was being hosted, swamped.

The heavy rain and forecast for more prompted meeting and track officials to call a rare halt to the two-day meeting before racing got underway on Sunday morning, leaving categories like the NZ F5000 one with just the one race – the 8-lap preliminary one on Saturday afternoon – to show for their efforts.

“It was certainly a shame that they had to call the whole meeting off after just the one day," said series spokesperson, Glenn Richards, “but it really was quite miserable here this morning, and with the Met Service extending it’s heavy rain watch for the Taupo area through until Monday it was obvious that the weather was not going to get quantifiably better any time soon, so from that perspective I think that the organisers of the meeting did the right thing by calling a halt to proceedings when they did.”

At the very same circuit just a day before, but in weather and track conditions (cool and dry) which could hardly have been more different to those everyone involved in the meeting woke up to on Sunday morning, the first (and as it turned out only) SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series race of the weekend on Saturday afternoon was won by Feilding ace Kevin Ingram (Lola T332).