S197 Kiwi Track Rat's Boss 302 resurrection Build Thread Profile - S197 Mustangs

[mwjscn]

Looking great with the stripes back on! No one would ever know it had an unfortunate bump before just looking at it.

 

[Bill Pemberton]

Resurrected and renewed , the SBY LS will maraud around the island of New Zealand , taking no prisoners and delighting the Ford faithful...........that is a bit of a verbose way to say she looks friggin fabulous!!!

 

[FilxNZ]

Well it was a bit of a fun, but sad day yesterday (Sunday). I went to one of our local tracks, Pukekohe Park Raceway for their last ever motorsport event. Sadly the track is closing down as the owners are converting it to purely serve the horse racing community. For anyone that follows the Australian V8 Supercars there has been a number of events here over the years and many of the more famous New Zealand drivers will have cut their teeth at this track.

It's and old circuit with minimal run off areas and unforgiving walls, coupled with being fast and bumpy it takes a some nerve to really conquer it. Personally I think it is (or now "was") the scariest track in NZ to drive at 10/10ths. I can't say it was my favourite track, but I will miss it and in a small country with very few racetracks it is a real shame to lose one as new ones don't come along very often.

As this was a track day and farewell to the circuit I was lucky to have managed to secure a ticket. The flipside was there was lots of other people that also wanted to attend so it was very busy. So quite a few cars on track in each session and I didn't really get any really clean laps. However as always the Boss was heaps of fun, the wail of the exhaust note bouncing off the concrete wall outside turn 4 is something I will remember for a long time. Just for reference I managed a 1:21.5 and a bunch of 1:22s which I was reasonably happy with given the crowded track and I was a little conservative as I really didn't want to be the guy that stuck it in the wall on the last day.

What's cool also in the last session of the day there was (as far as I could tell) no other Mustangs (or other American cars) on track, so I think I can say mine was the last ever Pony car to lap Pukekohe out of what must be thousands and thousands of laps by many different Mustangs over the years.

Here is a pic or two from the garage I shared with some Porsche people who were kind enough to squeeze my car in with them. Hopefully some action shots will surface in time as there was a few photographers around.



And this sign as you exit the pits kind of sums up for me..............

 

[Bill Pemberton]

Most of the Porsche folks I know are pretty cool. We all tease about other vehicle makes but most of us love a variety of cars and the Great Plains Porsche Group in my part of this Blue Globe was the group that got alot of drivers on the track. Decades back, when Insurance regs were a bit more reasonable they actively invited all interested drivers to DE Events. I actually became a Porsche DE Instructor and their example spread over to other Clubs ( BMW, Audi, etc. ). Oddly it never happened with the Corvette Club, but they were so big they always sold out with their own group. Things change and today most folks run with NASA or SCCA, but I still have fond memories with the Porsche guys. Sounds like they are a good group in NZ also and so cool you got to run the track prior to its closing.

Sad news, especially with NZ's rich history of talented drivers to come from your small Country!

 

[FilxNZ]

Most of the Porsche folks I know are pretty cool. We all tease about other vehicle makes but most of us love a variety of cars and the Great Plains Porsche Group in my part of this Blue Globe was the group that got alot of drivers on the track. Decades back, when Insurance regs were a bit more reasonable they actively invited all interested drivers to DE Events. I actually became a Porsche DE Instructor and their example spread over to other Clubs ( BMW, Audi, etc. ). Oddly it never happened with the Corvette Club, but they were so big they always sold out with their own group. Things change and today most folks run with NASA or SCCA, but I still have fond memories with the Porsche guys. Sounds like they are a good group in NZ also and so cool you got to run the track prior to its closing.

Sad news, especially with NZ's rich history of talented drivers to come from your small Country!

Thanks Bill! I agree most of the Porsche people I have met at the track are really great folks. It's the ones that think their Porsche is a status symbol that mainly irk me.

I forgot to also mention this older gentleman had wandered over to look at the Boss between sessions, turned out to be a guy called Bruce Anderson who is a well known Mustang and Ford race team owner in New Zealand. He was there in his 2020 Shelby road car and we chatted Mustangs for a bit. Here's a pic I stole off their Facebook page of two of their race cars (Mustang and a mid 80's Australian made XE Falcon) from a recent Touring Car Masters (TCM) race.


And here's a Youtube Link to the onboard in the Mustang in one of the TCM races a few weeks ago. This is with the grandson driving at Pukekohe (noting for this meet they ran the old circuit format without the right/left chicane at the end of the straight).

 

[TMSBOSS]

With the graphics on you gorgeous Boss complete. It may be time to update your.
She sure has come back to life.

Well done!

 

[FilxNZ]

With the graphics on you gorgeous Boss complete. It may be time to update your.
She sure has come back to life.

Well done!

Good point. I have updated the vehicle profile.

 

[TMSBOSS]

Very nice!

 

[FilxNZ]

Some action shots from the Playday on Track (the group that organised the event) FB page.