Spiel Magazine 221

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President’s Report

The standout event for the Club since our last Spiel was undoubtedly, after two previous cancellations, the Club’s hosting of New Zealand’s renowned Classic Cover Ellerslie Car Show and Intermarque Concours d’ Elegance, which finally went ahead on April 23rd.

Given that the two outstanding 356 models, belonging to Club members Allan Shanahan and Martin Rees, won the coveted Team Event at the last show, PCNZ automatically became the host Club for the following year’s show. Well, that was all set to run but Covid hit, as well as the tail end of a cyclone. Frustrating, but a blessing as even if Covid had not hit us, the weather was appalling!

Forward a year, now February 2023, with the Club fully prepared once again to host the event, all our volunteers organised to help run the day, the new Team Event entry cars being a year further advanced in preparedness and the impressive line up of cars for the PCNZ Club display in waiting, and we get the terrible flooding followed by Cyclone Gabrielle, due to pass close to Auckland on the weekend of the show. A Civil Defence emergency was declared for Auckland and at the last moment the correct decision was made to pull the plug on the event for a second time.

It was then announced that the next available date to host the show at the Ellerslie racecourse would be April 23rd. The event itself will be covered in articles and photos over the next couple of issues of Spiel.

I want to take the opportunity to thank our army of volunteers from our own and a number of other clubs and led by Richard Endean, for sticking with us through the cancellations and for your hard work in helping to host the show. The show was a great success with high public attendance and the many car clubs there were certainly impressive to see, with the standard of displays improving each time this 51 year old event takes place.

PCNZ hold the record as the Club with the most wins in the main event Concours’ category, the Team Event. Well, we have just advanced that honour with yet another win and we extend our warmest congratulations to Wayne Marmont and Craig Whitehead, owners of this year’s winning early 911’s.

A huge congratulations also goes out to long-time Club member, Gary Leong, who put countless hours into preparing Craig’s car and I can safely say that without Gary’s considerable input, the final Judges scores would have looked considerably different!

Well done to our Concours’ preparation team. I am proud to have been a part of this team, which every year comes together to prepare the cars for the competition ahead. A great effort guys, well done! The Club put on an impressive Club display, meticulously put together by Steve Protheroe, with help from Russell Jones.

On behalf of the Club I want to thank Tony Elsmore, Jurie Hanekom and Luke Fisher at Continental Cars Porsche. Every year we do our final Concours’ competing cars preparation in their workshop and they could not be more accommodating and supportive of PCNZ.

Likewise to Porsche NZ and Central Towing, your help and contribution was greatly appreciated. A final nod to the team at Obsessive Car Detailing (OCD), for their hard work helping with our entry cars final paint preparation. Great to have you on-board as a supporter of the Club!

This further win of course means we will be hosting the event again next year, fingers crossed for fine weather!

The Regions
Whilst the Northern Region have been busy with the Ellerslie Car Show, the rest of our regions have been actively holding a variety of events, runs and activities.

The George Begg Festival was held at the Teretonga Park Raceway, Invercargill. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to some postponed surgery, but every report I received back indicated that it was a fantastic event.

A lot of work went into the planning of this major spectacle, held over the first weekend of April, and Greg Clarke, Caitlin Ryan and the team at Porsche NZ were significantly involved in its planning. At the time of writing this there are 710 days left before the next George Begg festival, in April 2025!

It is great to hear that members in the Hawkes Bay Region are making some progress in recovering from the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle. The stories may not be in the news so much now, but we are all well aware of the long-term challenges the region faces going forward.

Great news for the Otago region with the coming together of a number of Club members under the wing of Larry and Luci Greene.

This has proved a challenge in the past, so well done to all involved and a special mention to Graeme Lyndsay and the Christchurch team for assisting with this.

The Pirelli Porsche Race Series
The Series had its last race of the season at Taupo, on April 15th. This marks the end of a very successful season, which saw the Series return once again to the South Island for rounds at Ruapuna and Highlands.

Stu Owers, Chris Barendregt, Matt Burton and the rest of the team have once again done an outstanding job managing the season and growing the series.

We are extremely happy to announce the continued support for next season of primary sponsor, Pirelli. Our thanks to Pirelli and to all the other Series sponsors.

Future Activities

WOTY
Central Region Committee members, Dan Reeves and Camilla Welch are busy organising the final details for the Weekend of the Year (WOTY), to be held at Ohakune, central North Island, over King’s Birthday Weekend.

This will be a fantastic event. Check the events page in the members’ only area on the Club website.

The Southern Region have planning underway for the SWOTY (Southern Weekend of the Year) with details to come.

75th global celebration of the first road registered Porsche
As I mentioned in the last Spiel, celebrations are planned at all four of the Official Porsche Centres, from the 8th and during the weekend of June 10-11th. We are planning to share the celebrations with them. Members are encouraged to visit, say hello and view Le Mans on big screens!

Safe driving now the winter months are approaching and have fun driving your Porsches!

Best regards
Ash Powell – President

Editor's Report

The importance of Volunteers

My message is a call to members to be aware that PCNZ is a great car Club that is run by a fanatical group of volunteers. We are proud of our Club and its achievements. We have grown from being 10 pioneer members in 1975 to now being New Zealand’s officially recognised Porsche Club having close to 900 members.

Success at winning the Teams event at the recent Ellerslie Intermarque is the result of a massive effort by volunteers over a period of more than two years. The southern members were volunteers at the George Begg Festival and Wheels over Wanaka. All regional groups whether they are in the Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, Wellington, Top of the South Island, Canterbury and now the Deep South rely on their volunteers. The Pirelli Race series could not be a success without volunteers.

This year is the 75th Anniversary of the revealing of the first Porsche, so we are looking for ideas and volunteers to celebrate the beginning of our favourite Marque.

These paragraphs are not only about me saying thanks to all these individuals but are also about me asking for more people to contact our committee members to volunteer their skills and enthusiasm to assist with our organising many more events. The skills needed range from simply handing out name tags to developing an idea for a new event.

Please contact the Club office or any of the Committee members listed on page 58 of Spiel and let us know of your willingness to assist.

Support the Club by advertising your business in Spiel
We are offering members an opportunity to promote their business to the membership. Club members are encouraged to patronise those who support the Club. Remember that you are talking to people who have interests in common with each of you. They love their Porsche too. A sample of the proposed page is included in this magazine.

There are almost 900 members so there will be many more tales to be told. Accept my challenge and please flood my inbox. 
spiel@porsche.org.nz