GREAT DRIVES : Auckland traffic…yeah right!
There is nothing pretty about peak hour driving in Auckland unless you are following your brother who takes every back street in Auckland. Well it was worth filming a little of the drive to pass the time.
GREAT DRIVES: WAIOEKA GORGE
The Waioeka Gorge is New Zealand’s largest scenic reserve and the winding 37km stretch of the SH2 links Opotiki and Gisborne. It is perhaps, one of my most favorite drives, not a road easily forgotten, one that deserves it’s reputation as a scenic beauty and a real drivers road.
Driving north I switched on my camera, drove within the legal speed limits, remembering that corners marked at 35km’s where recommendations I let the road take me on the journey.
WOOLF MUFFLER INSTALLATION
It was ironic that the muffler snapped and that I returned to a 38 year old custom muffler installation business in Auckland. The original owner, Alan Woolf, established the business and now it’s aptly managed by Jason and the wiz exhaust artist Chris. From the first email on a Sunday evening that was promptly answered, to delivering my car on the AA tow truck, and happily driving out was an enjoyable experience.
Jason and Chris are a team that gives fantastic advice, an excellent install creating a final outstanding product.
WOOLF MUFFLERS
Phone: 09 630 0690 • Fax: 09 638 6106 •
Email: jason@woolfmufflers.co.nz
Cnr Charles St and Dominion Rd,
Mt Eden, Auckland,
New Zealand
PO Box 8738, Symonds St, Auckland, New Zealand
GREAT DRIVES: UNTIL THE MUFFLER SNAPPED!
There is always plenty of advice of what tools you should carry in your car for any emergency repairs. Now, the MACH SR7 does not have a large trunk to carry a comprehensive range of tools and certainly nothing to repair a broken muffler? My best tool, well that the plan, was being an AA Plus Member for those unexpected situations that leaves you stranded…
It is almost an unwritten rule that those difficult break downs happen when it is raining, out of cell phone coverage, on a road with minimal traffic and more than 50 kilometers from a garage. When the muffler snapped, I hit all the above and resorted to standing in the rain and flagging down a large truck. The lady driver was incredible, stopping and offered help! Unfortunately all we could find was a bundle of sad looking string and a beaten up hose clip…she then set off to tell the garage I would try and get back to them or could they send out the AA tow truck. The below string sling looked ugly but enabled me to limp back to make a temporary fix.
String sling
Roadside fix
FINDING A QUALITY SERVICE STATION
This should be a relatively simple task, a garage service station that diagnoses and then upon approval completes repairs in a timely and cost effective procedure. Sadly, this does not happen. We all hear the horror stories of repairs that did not repair, or a simple procedure emptying your wallet. What we do not hear enough is about those service stations that are simply effective, reliable and affordable.
Enter Richardson Motors in Mt Albert, a complete garage service station. Paul, the owner and his team are coincidentally race car enthusiasts with a vast amount of experience from rally cars to track cars as both mechanics and drivers. Their combined experience and expertise meet all my expectations for my MACH SR7. Check the team work through this on the below YouTube for a warrant of fitness and general service of my MACH SR7 by the team, Paul, Neesha and Kevin.
RICHARDSON MOTORS
60 Richardson Road
Mt Albert
09 846 5899
richardsonmotors@xtra.co.nz
LIVING WITH EARTHQUAKES
Today I filmed what is a pretty straight forward procedure, installing the latest MACH SR7 front aero suspension. During this we had a 4.1 magnitude shake; well it was more like the ground deep down beneath you simply breaking apart. I had stopped filming moments before, and immediately looked at Mark and Robert for a sign to dash outside. They calmly stopped, then said “it’s alright, these ones come and go quickly”. On went the installation.
LIVING WITH EARTHQUAKES
It is not until you actually are in Christchurch that you begin to bridge the gap from media coverage and reality of daily living in an earth quake zone. In three days I tasted a few aftershocks and simply shook my head and how the people of Christchurch have survived the 7,400 ground shaking moments.
For McGregor Motorsports it has become a way of life, managing perhaps three productive work days a week, a factory that is badly beaten, suppliers who cannot supply, new factories empty due to no way to insure the buildings and amidst all of this they still continue.
The February shake all but stopped the business; it destroyed buildings, took lives and altered a community forever. The below photo’s taken on that day shows a factory almost crippled.
NEW ZEALAND CLASSIC CAR
Issue 247 in July 2011 featured “Made in New Zealand” and my MACH SR7 was one of the three cars to be featured. Obviously I am thrilled to have my car in a magazine, the story and the photographs – but more important is to recognize the team in Christchurch who when building my car would never have realized what the next year had in store for them. The initial earthquake and subsequent 7,400 aftershocks tested them though unbelievable trying times. With damaged homes, a factory wobbling they and their suppliers have managed to keep producing “Made in New Zealand”
ISSUE 247 JULY 2011
MACH SR7 VIDEO SERIES
A lazy Sunday in Auckland, nice to go shopping with the younger brother and soak up the sunshine in my MACH SR7….
MACH SR7 VIDEO SERIES
Kelly’s Track was one of my boyhood play-fields, but back then it was a gravel track that gave us a chance to test our bicycle skills. Now some 50 years later it is still a playground but not on a bicycle.