“Keep up to speed with New Zealand’s most exciting race series — Enzed Central Muscle Cars”
Tinman returns
Previous CMC series champion and ultra-competitive driver, Shane Wigston, is set to make a return to the CMC grid this coming season. After stepping back from full-on racing to focus on a few select events each year, he and his iconic HQ Holden will be a welcome return to the grid at round one. At this stage, Shane’s not sure whether he’ll compete every round; the plan is to see how the first few events of the season go before committing to anything further.
Despite taking the win at the V8 Supercar round in Pukekohe last season, Shane’s car has undergone a few upgrades recently, including an increase in the capacity of the Nascar-sourced motor from 358 to 410ci. To compensate for this, new larger brakes have been fitted and the team have been playing with the suspension set-up.
Long-term sponsors Auto & Aero Restorations and Century Batteries are also back on board, with Tony at Auto & Aero giving the car’s panels a tidy-up over the off-season.
When testing at Hampton Downs recently, Shane was happy with how the car felt and the lap times achieved, running 1:08s on old tyres and not in the best track conditions. Having him back on track could be just the thing Holden fans need to stop round one being a Ford whitewash, considering Dean Perkins’ and John Midgley’s form at Bathurst recently.
Angus Fogg’s New Pony
Former touring car driver and all-round good guy, Angus Fogg, had a taste of CMC a few years back behind the wheel of Hemi Toia’s XE Falcon. He loved the experience so much that he’s now building a steed of his own
A true-blue Ford man, it comes as no surprise that the car is a 1970 Mustang — which, being a race car engineer, he’s constructing himself. The mint bodyshell was purchased from Hemi in a project state and a Ford Fusion Nascar purchased out of North Carolina to provide the bulk of the mechanical components. Included in those are a 358ci Roush Yates engine producing around 830hp, along with a G-Force gearbox and nine-inch diff.
Angus is putting a focus on ensuring the car is built old school, as opposed to blurring the lines between muscle car and sports sedan as some builds do. He is working in conjunction with Moselle Panel & Paint and using PPG paint supplied by Autopaint to give the car a concours level of finish — one that’ll be topped off by graphics from iSign it to create a black and gold Smokey Yunick tribute look.
With Angus and his team doing all of the fabrication and mechanical work on the car, the build’s coming together remarkably fast. All going to plan, the car will hit the track for the first time around January. Look out for a full feature on the car at the time.
Midgley’s Double Duty
CMC young gun, John Midgley, will have his work cut out for him this season as he’ll be doing double duty driving in both CMC and BNT NZ Touring Cars, behind the wheel of an FG SuperTourer.
The SuperTourer was purchased earlier this year off Mark Petch, and was most notably driven by Shane van Gisbergen back in the 2013 BNT V8 SuperTourer season. Prior to its purchase, the Midgley team were looking at buying a new motor for the Falcon. However, when this car came up for a price that was too good to refuse, that soon changed. As with the XE, Wayne ‘Jacko’ Anderson from AV8 Motorsport will help prepare the vehicle. We wish John all the best for both classes.