Fans of single seaters and sports cars could be in for a treat if New Zealand Racing Driver League plans for a new pilot series of all-encompassing Formula Libre events comes to fruition.
The League is proposing to run Formula Libre as a category at its events – which begin on September 28/29 at Hampton Downs and include visits to Taupo and Manfeild on the calendar. The series is planning one grid at each event with two classes – Libre Open and Libre Sport – and hopes there will be plenty of interest with entry fees at just $210 for the weekend and a community-focussed racing environment.
“We know there are a great many cars in garages that might come out on a regular or semi-regular basis if there was a low cost series available to them which included the top North Island tracks,” explained NZRDL organiser Chris Watson, who has run Formula Libre events at Historic Racing Club events in recent years.
“We want to keep a historic-only field at historic events with a cut-off date of 1995 for all cars but at League events there is no reason why we cannot have all out there. That’s what Formula Libre traditionally was about anyway, it’s a Free Formula with no limit to age or speed of the vehicles. If there’s enough interest, we’d love to run it – those machines will always appeal to a race fan and the track is where they belong, not in a shed.”
Libre Open will be open to any single seater race car and that will include Formula 5000, Formula One, F2, F3, Formula Suzuki, Toyota Race Series, Formula Atlantic, Formula Pacific, IndyCar, Indy Lights and Formula Holden.
Libre Sport is open to any sportscar, including prototypes originally destined for tracks like Daytona or Le Mans, contemporary racing sports cars such as models from Juno, Radical and Ligier, as well cars such as Sakers and Lotus 7 inspired makes like Fraser, Caterham and Chevron. Home built ‘specials’ showcasing NZ engineering and ingenuity are also eligible, as are CanAm and TransAm cars.
All cars must simply comply to either the regulations they are currently running to in an NZ series, or to the rules they would have run to in their original series.
