MINI’s New Challenge Race Car Get a Lift
The MINI Challenge 2008 race car is one step closer to it’s official race debut. Here’s an excerpt from a recent story on Motor Report:
>The all new MINI Cooper Works R56 CHALLENGE cars have taken to the sky on their way downunder from Germany. True to their “Flying Brick” moniker, the first 20 cars are currently being airlifted from Germany to Australia, in time to race in the inaugural Australian MINI CHALLENGE Series, due to get underway at Eastern Creek Raceway on the weekend of 7-9 March.
>These are the very first of the new R56 generation MINI Hardtops in the world and Eastern Creek will be hosting the competition debut for the model, with the European CHALLENGE due to kick off later this year during the northern Spring.
[ MINI Cooper Works Challenge Race Car ] Motor Report
Hope there are a couple Motoringfile readers that get to see the race. Would love to how it goes all in all, only envious because I won’t be there to cheer them on.
Jon, it’s an official clubMINI event and we are expecting a big turn out, I can’t wait !!!
Fantastic, hopefully some of you bring a camera along to snap a shot or two to share with us poor saps in the States that can only dream of the Mini Challenge series.
I’m not sure I’ll get along to the Eastern Creek debut on 7-9 March, but I’ll definitely make it with my camera to Wakefield Park for round 2 on 4-6 April.
has the MINI Challenge Series ever been broadcasted? Seems like it should be.
The New Zealand series is halfway through the second year of series racing. If the Australian events are as successful as NZ then this will be an exciting series. Both NZ and Australia motorsport series are combined with other one-make series events, such as the Porsche GT3 Cup which run as part of a national racing series tier one programme. It may be hard to duplicate such a series in USA.
NZ event reports have been sent to MF but maybe there is not much interest in other countries events outside the USA or Australia. I stand to be corrected by Gabe, but MF really only caters for the USA market, but there are many people like myself who are regular readers and contributors outside the USA, who are really interested in what is happening in USA and enjoy and appreciate the good work of the MF team.
I for one enjoy seeing Mini’s on the track, to me personally it doesn’t matter which country doesn’t matter. The pavement of the track and skill of the drivers are ignorant of national boundaries in my book, I am a fan of racing and love the Mini. I am hopping for nothing but continued success for the Challenge series in NZ.
All Australian MINI Challenge rounds will be broadcast on Channel 7 in Australia, though at this stage I’m not sure what the kind of delay there will be between race day and the broadcast. I’m definitely planning on being at Eastern Creek for the first round.
Details of the MINI Challenge TV deal can be found <a href="http://www.ausringers.com/2008/02/14/mini-challenge-secures-great-tv-package.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.
Looks to be a pretty good deal for the first season.
Would love to see one of these races, plotting and planning a vacation that I hope lets me come over to cheer them on.
Have also thought the Mini Challenge Hot laps and race experience packages could be a serious rush.
<a href="http://www.minichallenge.com.au/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.minichallenge.com.au/</a>
Any of you southern hemishere gentleman have the capabilities of capturing these broadcasts and making available a torrent?
Many of us would love to watch these races.
Here is a nice picture of them actually being shipped with the Dutch airliner Martinair:
Shows correctly in the preview but not in the actual post, here the link to the image:
<a href="http://www.newminiclub.nl/foto/365foto.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.newminiclub.nl/foto/365foto.jpg</a>