The 2-day Whittakers sponsored MG Classic Race Meeting held at Manfeild Autocourse (situated in Fielding, 16km from Palmerston North) is recognised as one of the biggest and best classic race meetings in New Zealand. Our SPR Race Team has not competed at this annual meeting in previous years, as it is normally scheduled just one week after the gruelling 7-day Dunlop Targa ... and we are never quite sure if our Almac Sabre S2 is going to survive the car-breaking Targa rally! But as we did not compete in this year's Targa we decided to enter.

The Team of Lance (Arrow Wheels), Andy (Race FX), Matt (Chief Mechanic), and myself loaded up the Sabre S2 onto a trailer and headed South to Manfeild ... a 6 hour drive. We were entered into 5 races over the 2-day event ...

• Race 4 : Component Cars (finished 24th in a field of mainly light-weight, track-only sports racing cars)
• Race 14 : Super Sedans (finished 22nd in a field of fire-breathing Super Sedans & TransAms with up to 800hp)
• Race 22 : Super Sedans (13th in a very wet race where our competitor's huge horsepower was less of an advantage)
• Race 33 : Super Sedans (16th after a handicapped start on another wet track with the same track-only racecars)
• Race 36 : Flying Farewell (finished in 15th place in a very mixed field after another handicapped start)

Great weekend, but only managed a rather unspectacular best lap time of 1 minute 23 seconds, and best finish of 13th. Not too bad for a road car racing against mainly specialist track-only racecars ... plus we had never raced at Manfeild before.

Check out our Media Gallery for incar video of each race, or click on the thumbnails below to view larger images.