2023 Action aplenty as King of Kohatu roars back into life

It’ll be full-throttle action during this weekend’s King of Kohatu.

This weekend will see the third annual running of Nelson Car Club's Mitre 10 Mega Nelson King of Kohatu, held over Saturday and Sunday at Kohatu Park.

Returning champion Scott Alexander will be the firm favourite, sharing the spectacular Semog Crosscar with the machine's owner, his brother Tim Alexander.

Paul Bugler completes a trio of Marlborough Crosscar drivers who will be up against young gun Ollie Ward from Wellington in his similar machine.

Ward will be sharing his cross car with another young driver, Ryan Howden who is making the trip to King of Kohatu from Invercargill.

Howden is the South Island ambassador for Heart Kids NZ and is very excited to be given the opportunity to debut at the event in a first time drive in the Semog Crosscar.

As Heartkids Ambassador, Howden is looking forward to being able to show fellow Heartkids what he can do.

Jason Clark, of Marlborough, in his Mitsubishi Lancer, was the 2021 King of Kohatu during the inaugural event.
Having been competing with his family at club motorsport events around Invercargill, Howden had the opportunity to be a part of National Rally champion and former WRC driver Hayden Paddon's Heart Kids Next-Gen motorsport day held recently in Auckland, it was here that he met Semog NZ owner Jeff Ward and was offered the drive.

“I’m really looking forward to the event, we have wanted to come up for The King of Kohatu for ages, so to be able to do it in one of these Crosscars is amazing,” said Howden.

Heart Kids New Zealand is a charity organisation providing crucial, lifelong support, information, connection and hope to heart kids and their whānau. Heart Kids NZ is the only national organisation in Aotearoa NZ dedicated to providing that support.

“We help at every step of the journey; from diagnosis, through childhood, the teenage years and into adulthood. Our practical and emotional support is vital in helping individuals and families cope with the day-to-day challenges of living with a childhood heart condition”.
Another returning champion is Marlborough's Jason Clark, although this year he will not be competing in his Lancer Evo rally car.

Having sold the car that he won with in 2021, he is now competing in a Toyota Starlet powered by a Suzuki motorcycle engine. This new car may not be competing for overall honours this year, but the screaming motorcycle engine in the lightweight Toyota ought to be spectacular.

Last year's 4WD winner and Nelson Car Club president Carey Harwood will be doing his best to repeat his winning effort from last year in his Subaru Impreza.

Both his children will also be competing in their Honda Civics, competing in what should be a large Youth class (under 16).

“The venue and this event are just awesome as a place young people can come and learn to drive in a safe and controlled environment,” Harwood said. “Every year we see more and more youth coming out to compete, I'm always amazed at how quickly they learn some pretty impressive car control skills.”

The Mitre 10 Mega Nelson King of Kohatu is open to all manner of vehicles, from the spectator-favourite Semog Crosscars, fully modified 4WD rally cars to standard road cars. The road cars will be competing in their own class, affectionately named the “Mum’s Car” class.
The cars will be outside the Nelson Classic Car Museum for technical inspections from 6pm on Friday night. This will be open to the public that would like to come down and see the different machines that will be taking part.

The event itself starts on Saturday at Kohatu Park at 9am. Saturday sees four qualifying runs for all competitors, Sunday has two more followed by knockout elimination runs, splitting the field down from an expected 60 competitors, to the top 32, then 16, 8, 4 and finally the top two run off, on Sunday afternoon when this year’s King of Kohatu will be crowned.

Spectator entry is by gold coin donation at the gate, supporting Heart Kids NZ.

2021 "The Mitre 10 MEGA Bowater Hyundai King of Kohatu."

The Nelson Car Club is looking for its first King. Or Queen for that matter.

A new motorsport event, The Mitre 10 MEGA Nelson Bowater Hyundai King of Kohatu, held at Nelson Car Club's gravel track at Kohatu Park is aimed at all sorts and levels of motorsport, from Shopping carts to Cross Cars and most things in between (Cross Cars are a relatively new and very exciting, spectator friendly type of single seater race car, made for both tarmacked and loose surface racing).

Cars competing will be both purpose-built competition cars in their different classes (4wd, 2wd and under 1300cc) as well as a class for completely unmodified road cars, and of course the new Cross Cars.

Saturday the 20th of November sees qualifying runs begin for all drivers, Sunday 21st will have two more qualifying runs followed by the elimination runs - top 32, 16, 8, 4 and the final two. The winner of the final two is crowned The King of Kohatu. During the elimination runs there will also be class run-offs to find the winner of 1300cc, 2wd and the production-based cars.

Carey Harwood from Nelson Car Club is also pretty exited to announce that National Rally Champion and World Rally Championship star Hayden Paddon will also be making an appearance in his championship winning Hyundai Ap4 rally car. While Paddon’s rally car doesn’t quite fit the rules for the weekends event, he will be do demonstration runs throughout the event. Harwood also hopes he can convince him to do a run or two in one of the motorcycle powered Cross Cars.

Also entered for the event is Christchurch’s Stuart Weeber, driving his ex-Possum Bourne Subaru and Marlborough’s Jason Clark, fresh from his win in Nelson Car Club’s recent Tyreworld Richmond Phil Fiddymont Rally Sprint in his Mitsubishi Lancer. Other cars to look out for include Neville Kidd in his Honda powered Ford Escort, Motueka’s Ashton Wood in his Masport Fort Escort and father and son team Jeff and Ollie Ward heading a six strong entry of Semog Bravo Cross Cars. Harwood says, “These Cross Cars are sure to be crowd favourites – they are light weight motorcycle powered machines, revving to 15000 rpm, the sound of that at our track in the valley is going to be something else!”

The event is also open to completely unmodified road cars, brothers DJ and Nathan Musk are entered in their Mercedes 500, with Taylor Devine class favourite in his Nissan Primera.

Cars and drivers will also be outside Mitre 10 Mega in Nelson on Friday night from 6:00pm on Friday the 19th, for technical inspections and display. Public are welcome to come down and check the cars out (following normal covid distancing and mask procedures of course), grab a poster and maybe even photo with Hayden Paddon himself.

Racing starts on both days at  9:00am, and Nelson Car Club will have crowned its first King of Kohatu by 4:00pm on Sunday evening.