The new NZV8 CoTF, #001X made its first on track appearance at Pukekohe back on the 5th of November and by all accounts it drove beautifully. FG01 spent both Saturday and Sunday on display on the in field and was used to lead out the NZV8s on their formation and warm up laps for Saturdays qualifying and Sunday's races. Kevin Williams was the lucky man to drive the car first, completing 4 laps prior to the NZV8s leaving pit lane for qualifying. Inky Tulloch drove FG01 on Sunday morning leading out the field for Race 1, then it was Clarke Proctors turn to lead out the field for Race 2. As we all know the weather closed in and we decided to leave the car on the infield for Race 3 as the rain came pouring down.
Our own Derek Mitchell had the pleasure of turning some quicker laps during the Sunday lunch break, but as there was also safety car rides and the Cure Kids car also on track, Derek was instructed to limit his front straight speed, but once through turn one.... go for it. Derek completed about 6-7 laps, and once we managed to convince him lunch was over and he had to return to the pits, got him out of the car we could tell by the huge smile on his face that we had built a great car. Derek compared the FG01 to his own Super GT Monaro from 2002 saying that 'this new car out handles the old Monaro, she feels great'.
Last thursday FG01 was delivered to the Mackenzie team at Albany Toyota in Auckland. The car will reside in the show room until a testing program is put in place, then we can put FG01 through it paces and see what she can really do.
I have edited down the time lapse footage from the #001X build, it is still 15mins long, but its pretty cool to see it come together, here's the YouTube link.
