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Camry V8 pilot aquaplanes around a soaked Pukekohe Park Raceway
Pukekohe Park Raceway is a savage and unforgiving enough circuit in the dry, what with its bumpy profile, massive kerbs, and concrete barriers. But when you add precipitation it somehow gets 10 times worse.
Ever since the circuit adopted its concrete barriers, water drainage has figuratively gone down the toilet. Turn one is the worst culprit, as massive puddles of standing water are a frequent sight on wet days, even after showers have long past.
The BNT NZ Touring Car Championship faced all of these things last Sunday, when they raced in rain for just about all of their Sunday sessions.
Their final race was easily the worst of the lot as the rain reached torrential levels. And there's no truer indication of how wild it was than this on-board clip from class-one rookie Sam Barry in the Richards Team Motorsport Toyota Camry V8. That 'Man Up' sticker on the center of his steering wheel has never been more relevant.
Starting from the third row of the grid, Barry gets a half reasonable jump off the line, swerving around Blair MacDonald before running three-wide through turn one, and kicking the tail out royal.
He kicks it out numerous times over the course of the two laps, as the big powerful V8 skips haphazardly over the patches of standing water dotted around the circuit — Barry's car control reminiscent of Glenn Seton's incredible on-boards from the 1987 Bathurst 1000. If you watch carefully when he goes through turns two and three on the second lap, you can see a jet of water fire into the cockpit through the driver's door. Crazy.
Thankfully before things got too intense, the race was red flagged and abandoned. Probably for the best.