2 x NZV8 Champion Andy Booth, with the support of Big Ben Pies, joined an all kiwi driver line up recently to take on the historic and daunting Nurburgring circuit in Germany over the weekend of May 23/24 2009. As part of the 'Kiwi Team Nurburgring' crew, Booth partnered with Tim Martin, Stuart Owers and Lewis Scott in a stunning 4.2 litre V8 Powered Audi RS4 prepared by German team Goetz Motorsport.
With a lap length of 25 kilometres, over 180 turns and an entry list of 170+ cars, the ADAC 24hr race is right up there as one of endurance racing's toughest challenges. The Audi crew performed exceptionally well having only had a handfull of laps in the RS4 prior to race start. After a cautious start and then strong over night performancres from all drivers the kiwi's were running 36th at the 16 hour mark when they suffered a total engine failure without warning. The Goetz Motorsport crew performed a near miracle in fitting the spare engine in just over 2 1/2 hours meaning that Andy and Kiwi Team Nurbugring could run the last 5 hours of the race...... and still finish 2nd in class!!

Check out the gallery section on this website for images from the Nurburgring 24hr race and click on the links below to see the TV program covering the journey.

http://tvnz.co.nz/powerbuilt-tools-motorsport/motorsport-s2009-e23-video-2826523

Media Release                                                                    

2 March 2009

 

Success and Setbacks for Booth at Manfeild

 

Andy Booth, driving the #23 Big Ben Pies Holden endured what can only be described as a mixed bag of results during round 6 of the BNTV8’s Championship held at Manfeild Park in Feilding.

Looking to build on the success of his round win at the previous event in Invercargill where he was able to claw back some of the ground lost to championship leaders Kayne Scott and John McIntyre, Booth was fired up for a good showing at the Manawatu track.

The heavy rain that affected most of the country over the weekend played a major part in determining the course of the racing right from Saturday’s qualifying when rain began to fall part way through the final top ten session, the Big Ben Commodore qualifying 7^th.

 

Booth’s comments on qualifying:

 “Not an outstanding result, we really would have hoped for better than that but the car just didn’t seem to respond to new tyres, I set the same time in session 2 on used rubber as I did at the end on new”

 

“I know we could have gone faster but you had to do it early in the session, once the rain came it was game over”

Saturday afternoon brought race 1 along with heavy rain, something that seemed to work in Booth’s favour as he quickly moved forward obviously happy with the set up the AV8 Motorsport crew had put on the Big Ben car. With good car speed and good fortune as other competitors came unstuck in the treacherous conditions Booth moved up into 3^rd place before the safety car was brought out while the marshalls recovered the car of Andrew Anderson from the gravel trap. At the restart leader Craig Baird made a mistake at turn 1 allowing McIntyre and Booth through. Despite strong pressure from Baird over the final lap Booth held on to cross the line in 2^nd place.

 

Race 1 comments:

“That was a fun race and a good result”

 

“The AV8 crew had to make some quick decisions on the set up for that on and whatever they did it worked, the car was fantastic in the wet”

 

Race 2 on Sunday morning brought a dry track and Booth was determined to make the most of his front row starting position. The Big Ben car got the jump on McIntyre off the start but with the Ford having the inside line for the first turn Booth had to yield. The next 6 laps provided an exciting ‘tooth and nail’ battle involving Booth, McIntyre, Baird, Scott and AV8 team mate Paul Manuell. Ultimately the leading Fords were too strong under brakes for the Commodores and began to edge away by a few tenths of a second per lap in the second half of the race.

Booth crossed the line in 4^th place.

 

Race 2 comments:

“That was pretty intense for those first few laps, I was throwing everything I could at it but it just wasn’t enough”

 

“I just could match those front three Fords in the dry, I tried to match their braking points and nearly went off 3 or 4 times. We’ll need to work on that for this afternoon”

 

The rain made a heavy return for the full reverse grid race 3. From a starting position of 22^nd and with the confidence that the Big Ben car was quick in the wet, Booth went on the charge surging forward an astounding 8 positions on the opening lap and had made it half way through the field to 11^th by lap 3. Unfortunately the great run came to an end at the start of lap 4 when cleanly passing a slower car exiting turn 1. The other competitor turned across the track into the Big Ben car, breaking the steering arm and forcing Booth from the track.

 

Race 3 comments:

“A gutting end to what was shaping up to be a great result. Whether it was ignorance or inexperience from the other driver I don’t know but it shouldn’t have happened and it has cost us dearly”

 

“The boys gave me another brilliant wet weather car and it seemed I could just place it anywhere on the track, I was just playing it conservative and waiting for the clear opportunities to come.”

“The most gutting thing about that was the fact that at the time I got taken out I was 4 places ahead of the eventual race winner, the win was definitely a chance for us today.”

 

The race 3 non finish drops Booth back to 4^th place in the BNTV8’s Championship behind Craig Baird.

Media Release                                                                    

19 January 2009

 

Booth Takes Round Win in Invercargill

 

Andy Booth, driving the #23 Big Ben Pies Holden, took out his first overall round win of the season in testing conditions at Teretonga Park Raceway in Invercargill over the weekend. As well as topping the points table across the weekend’s 3 races Booth also had the perfect weekend to capitalise on the setbacks suffered by main championship rivals Kayne Scott and John McIntyre to close the gap in the overall points standings by 65 points.

The Big Ben car showed good speed right from the start of Friday’s two practice sessions with Booth consistently inside the top 4 on the time sheets. With the focus on merely fine tuning what was already a fast car the AV8 Motorsport crew looked forward to Saturday’s qualifying with confidence.

Setting the fastest time during the 10 minute warm up on Saturday further strengthened this confidence although with the top 6 or 7 cars only ever separated by fractions of a second it would require a perfect performance in qualifying to secure pole position. It was those fractions of a second that proved to be the difference, Booth’s fastest lap denying him bragging rights by a mere 0.070 of a second, and there were still 2 others cars between him and pole sitter McIntyre. Third placed Fogg actually did the exact same time as the Big Ben Commodore right down to 0.001 of a second but was placed ahead of Booth by virtue of having posted the time first.

 

Booth’s comments on qualifying:

 “Bittersweet result really, after being quickest in the warm up this morning and again in the first leg of qualifying, 4^th is a little disappointing. But you’ve got to keep it in perspective, we did exactly the same time as Fogg in 3^rd and are only 7/100^th’s of a second off pole.....that’s about a quarter of the time it takes to blink!!”

 

“It's a funny old track to qualify on here, there’s minimal time gain on new tyres, the positive thing for us is that the car more or less matched that quickest time 3 or 4 times in a row which suggests we’ll have a strong car over a race”

 

Saturday afternoon brought race 1 along with forecasts of heavy rain, the ever changing Southland sky made it near impossible for teams to predict what direction to go with car set up but in the end, 20 minutes before the BNT V8’s were due to hit the track, the decision was made for them. The sky opened and Teretonga Park was engulfed by what can only be described as a monsoon like downpour. With the track water logged and pitlane completely flooded racing was abandoned for approximately an hour whilst the officials waited for the weather to ease and make a decision as to whether it was safe to continue racing.

The race did eventually get underway at 8pm in wet, dim but drivable conditions. Booth maintained his 4^th placed starting position for the first lap before slipping past Fogg for 3^rd on lap 2, the Big Ben Commodore then proceeded to reel in Kayne Scott in the Fujitsu Ford before the safety car was briefly deployed on lap 6. On the restart Scott’s car was slow to get away, later to be attributed to an engine fault, and Booth quickly passed him for 2^nd place. Despite pushing to catch the Ford of McIntyre Booth chose to ease off towards the end of the race and consolidate his position. It turned out he needn’t have pushed any harder anyway as McIntyre’s car failed post race technical checks of the front track width handing the victory and full 75 points to Booth. Championship leader Scott’s engine troubles relegated him to only 13^th place further assisting Booth’s resurgence in the championship points table.

 

Race 1 comments:

“That was a crazy build up to a race, not knowing what the conditions were going to do, what tyres or set up to run or if we were even going to be able to race!”

 

“I’m rapt to have got our first win for the season, being handed the victory through a disqualification is not the ideal way to do it but a win is a win and we’re glad for the points, you’ve gotta feel sorry for Johnny, I’m sure they didn’t do anything deliberate but the rules are the rules”

 

“With the two drivers ahead of us in the championship stumbling today this really throws the championship open again, bring it on!”

 

Race 2 on Sunday morning had an equally confusing start with light rain again falling just as the V8’s were about to take to the track. Most cars left the assembly area on slick dry tyres but the track was already damp. There is a 10 minute warm up window prior to cars forming up on the start grid where competitors may circulate the track but must come through the pitlane then rejoin the race track, the pitlane exit is closed at the end of the 10 minutes and any car still in the pits at this stage must start the race from the pitlane. Towards the end of this warm up the rain became heavier and the AV8 Motorsport crew, along with most of the field, made the call to come in and change to full wet tyres. With all the congestion in the pits the crew worked as quickly as they could to facilitate the change but the race officials made the call to close the pit exit with around half the field still in pitlane, which is where they would have to start the race. By virtue of their crew’s positioning close to the pit exit Booth managed to be 3^rd in the queue of cars stuck in the pitlane that would be released to join the race after all the cars on the grid proper had received the green light and cleared the pitlane exit, a far cry from the pole position start Booth would have otherwise enjoyed. As the field roared past Booth was flagged away from the pits in 12^th place and he put his head down starting a charge back through the field that had his crew going wild in the pits, living every corner with him. 8^th by the end of lap one, 5^th by lap 3 and with a large gap to close to the front few cars. Craig Baird who started alone off the front row was over 15 seconds ahead by this stage and in an uncatchable position but Booth set his sights firmly on the cars of Pedersen, Adams and Tulloch. The Big Ben car, with the soft wet tyres now disintegrating on the drying track completed passes on laps 8, 10 and 14 of the 16 lap race to cross the line in 2^nd, only one shy of Booth’s original intended starting position.

With McIntyre in 7^th and Scott in 11^th the championship points gap took another big step in the right direction.

 

Race 2 comments:

“To grab 2^nd in those circumstances, well it’s a pretty huge result really. I could see how gutted the crew were when we got caught in the pits and I think that just urged me on to make something of a bad situation, their reactions at the end of the race were more than reward enough although the win was definitely on without the pit closure issue”

 

“There was some real exciting racing during that one, being on a full dry track set up it was far too stiff for the real wet conditions at the start of the race but was working really well on the damp surface through the middle part and I could be very confident with some of the passing manoeuvres”

 

“Our race officials have a tough role and they do it very well but that decision to not declare the race wet baffled me. Almost the entire grid made the call to come in for wet tyres towards the end of the 10 minute warm up which to me obviously says the track was too wet for slicks. If they’d declared it wet then they could give everyone time to change their tyres and make the start grid, then everyone’s on a level playing field even if the track did dry towards the end of the race”

 

The final reverse grid race got away again under threatening skies but the track was dry and all cars on slick tyres. With Booth and Baird equal on points for the weekend going into the final race the Big Ben driver’s key goal in the final race was to finish ahead of the United Video car and claim the round win. A conservative start saw make up one spot on the opening lap before the safety car was sent onto the circuit for an accident at turn 1. The race was eventually red flagged as it was taking some time to retrieve the badly damaged car. When racing resumed Booth’s main goal was to catch up to Baird, who was now 3 spots ahead, and get in front. Having got on to the rear bumper of Baird on lap 6 the opportunity came on lap 10 when up ahead Andrew Porter was turned by Andy Knight going into turn 2. With Porter broadside across the track Booth went inside him and Baird outside, the two emerged side by side but the Big Ben car had the momentum and inside line for the following corner.

On lap 16 Booth managed to put 2 cars between himself and Baird with a 3 wide pass down the front straight but the race officials put a call out for him to let the cars of Richards and Edgell back past as there were yellow flags (no passing) out at the start of the straight.

At the end of the 20 lapper Booth crossed the line in 10^th place and took the well deserved round win. McIntyre and Scott, having started further up the grid finished 2^nd and 4^th  regaining some of the points lost in the opening 2 races but Booth and the Big Ben/AV8 Motorsport team still closed the gap to 1^st and 2^nd in the championship by 65 and 66 points respectively in the process putting themselves squarely back in contention.

 

Race 3 comments:

“I only had one focus during that race, get ahead of Baird!”

 

“The round win is massive for our team, they’ve worked so hard this year and especially this weekend in such trying conditions, I just rapt I could turn it into a result for them.”

 

“We’ve been 3^rd in the points since round one but every round the gap has got a little bigger, it’s great to see it going the other way. It’s still a big ask but if we can repeat this weekend at the next 2 rounds then we can still win the championship”

 

The BNT V8’s now head straight into round 6 at Manfield on Feb 27-Mar 1, the AV8 Motorsport cars of Booth and team mate Paul Manuell will arrive back at their Auckland base on Wednesday where they will undergo a thorough servicing schedule and engine re-fresh before the next round.