A KIWI ICON FLY'S AGAIN AT SC2026 ! 

MEDIA RELEASE DECEMBER 2025

By Steve Keene 

TEAM KIWI WILL WOW THE CROWD AT LEVELS RACEWAY

The Classic Motor Racing Club are immensely proud to host not only Team Kiwi Racing, and team owner Mr David John , we are eagerly anticipating the debut to Levels Raceway of the Team Kiwi Racing Holden Commodore VT V8 Supercar which Jason Richards and Angus Fogg debuted at Bathurst,  Mt Panorama in 2000.

This piece of New Zealand motorsport history has just returned from a 25th anniversary tour to Bathurst following a multi-year ground up restoration back to its former glory as it lined up on the grid at Bathurst in 2000.

The tour to Mt Panorama was arranged by TKR as an anniversary of not only TKR's debut at Bathurst but also in memory of their incredibly talented and greatly missed young driver Jason Richards, who sadly passed away aged 35 in 2011. And now the tour will continue to span New Zealand.

The Southern Classic will provide additional excitement to the fans with the car on full display, and a wide range of official team merchandise available to purchase, but the car will also run at speed at the end of the days racing on all 3 days of the meeting, giving us all a rare opportunity to hear and see this machine in all its glory once again.

Many fans will remember fondly those fantastic years of V8 Supercar racing, spanning the mid 90's through to the late 2000's when cars were actually still derived from real road car chassis, the racing was close, the excitement was real, the blue vs. red rivalry was intense, and smaller teams could run on the grid alongside the big money operations, and the drivers became household names.

And it was in this environment that Team Kiwi Racing (New Zealand's first ever Australian V8 Supercar team) would prosper and provide an opportunity for New Zealand drivers to step into the "big time" based on merit alone and not the size of their cheque book, bringing with them the support of New Zealand sponsors who could gain both domestic and international fame via thier association with the TKR All Black machine.

TKR couldn't have chosen a more difficult assigment to debut at Bathurst Mt Panorama in 2000 with rain creating very difficult conditions intermittently throughout the race and forcing many competitors off the track and out of the race, and starting from 23rd on the grid in a field of 54 cars the team worked their way through the race to finish a respectable 16th overall out of the 29 cars that actually managed to get to the end of a very difficult 1000km's.

Many seasons of racing continued on from this first race, and many drivers including Kayne Scott, Shane Van Gisbergen, Paul Radisich, Craig Baird, Chris Pither and Fabian Coulthard just to name a few.

To add to the TKR "All Black Racer" history, the car (chassis # 035) was actually built by Larry Perkins Engineering in 1999, and was sold to TKR as a VT Commodore then upgraded to VX specifications in 2001. It has remained in the ownership of TKR ever since its retirement from racing, and now again looks like it just rolled out of the workshop following a tremendous ground up restoration carried out by TKR owner David John.

We look forward to seeing this iconic car and TKR at Levels in February for the Southern Classic.

Don't miss an opportunity to witness a piece of NZ motorsport history back in action.