Graeme Hill – appropriately named for a motorsport enthusiast – is the man behind the new ‘run what ya brung’ rotary powered racing category running with next season’s New Zealand Racing Drivers’ League – RRE. RRE of course, stands for Rotary Racing Enthusiasts and that’s exactly what this class will be all about. We caught up with Graeme to find out a little more about the new initiative.
What will the class be all about?
The primary idea driving the class is to find a stable home for all the fantastic rotary-powered race cars around. The NZRDL weekends will allow all of these cars to come together over the summer and provide a unique category of racing for New Zealand. It will be a class for enthusiasts, both competitors and spectators.
Has there been much interest since you revealed it?
There really has been a lot of interest and the level of interest is growing by the day. I have had contact from people with current clubmans cars as well as engine builders who want in, people building new cars, Targa competitors and a variety of others. I expect we will see a good number of varied specification cars for the first round. The majority of people who own rotary powered racing cars do not have a place to race over the summer months which are of course the traditional months of competitive racing.
Will you be racing yourself?
Try and stop me, this has been a vision of mine for some years. A place where all those ‘Rota’ nuts can come together for a weekend, have some good racing, tell some tall stories and get under the skin of anyone who doesn’t love rotaries – and that’s all in good fun of course!. Both my wife Debbie and myself will be there!
Does rotary racing have a good heritage in NZ?
Rotary powered vehicles have been used in nearly all forms of motorsport in NZ from motor bikes to Jet Sprint boats. There has always been a strong following in rally and circuit racing since the early 70s when the power to weight benefits of rotary engines was realised.
Is it a contemporary class or basically a historic one ?
The class will tend to be more of a historic class when you consider a large number of the cars available are RX7 models. There will be quite a few series 1 cars which will now be 30+ years old, mix in with this hopefully a sprinkling of RX2 and RX3 vehicles all of a similar age. I am expecting a number of newer RX7 models, mid 1990’s, some RX8’s and a sprinkling of non-Mazda chassis with rotary powerplants.
I am hopeful of getting people like Cameron Jones, Brian Gray, Andy Duffin and Bret Killip to name just a few to join our grid for some meetings with their highly modified contemporary technology cars. It’s not impossible that people like Charlie Evans might like to throw their rally cars around a circuit for a few laps.
For the uneducated out there, what does a rotary powered car do in terms of revs and power potential?
They rev heaps. Typical numbers are 9000 rpm but some, like Andy Duffin’s 12a powered car is capable of revving out to 11000rpm. Power ranges a great deal, a stock standard 12 powered RX7 makes around 130hp, a slightly modified 13b makes around 200hp. But a full worked 13 PP turbo car will make an astonishing 350+ hp. Not bad for and engine that two average people can lift in and out of the car.
What classes will there be in RRE?
At this stage we are looking at simply two classes, a turbo class and an N.A. class. The addition of a turbo makes a huge difference to power and torque figures that at this time it would seem to be the best split. This may change once we get a clearer picture of our grid makeup but that is our plan initially. Really we just want to get people out racing and having fun. We want it to be clean and cost effective and really what more can you want out of your racing?
Tell us more about the enthusiasts themselves….what is it about rotaries?
That is a hard one, I think it is about being different. To be a rotary enthusiast you have to be thick-skinned, you have to happy being a minority outcast and you have to have a sense of humour! In a part of the world where motorsport is dominated by V8 machinery, rotaries have been the outcast for ‘all of time’ so the average rotary enthusiast loves shoving one up the V8 boys on lap times. You have to have a sense of humour though, because you never know when that engine is going to let you down. You either like the sound or you don’t and I think that is the defining thing with a real rotary enthusiasts, the sound and the simplicity.
How does the new class differ from anything out there already for rotary powered cars?
The big difference is that this class will be only rotaries. Currently there is only one class the genuinely caters for rotary cars and that is Pro7. The big difference is that Pro7 caters for tightly controlled class cars, RX 7 only, it is a driver’s championship. This class will cater for any car any engine configuration. Traditionally to race a car like this drivers have to compete in open classes like GTRNZ classes or SS2000. To race in these the rotary gets a displacement penalty and/or a weight penalty. In the RRE open rotary class there will be non of this. Just get a car, drop a rotary in it and go racing.
Will they all be Mazda powered effectively or are there other rotary manufacturers?
I expect that all the cars will be Mazda rotary powered. There are other manufacturers of rotary engines, mainly in the aircraft industry but to my knowledge these are too expensive to compete with Mazda for race engines. There will be various custom made components and some internal parts but the major components will be Mazda.
