National Series Competition 2007

ORANZ (Off Road Association of New Zealand) was started in the early 1980's and are the organisation which established the safety rules governing for this motor sport, sanction the member clubs, race meetings and secures sponsorship on behalf of the sport.

The National Championship Series is divided into North Island and South Island competitions. Competitors gain points from each race meeting in their own island over a three race meeting series. The last ORANZ race is the National Final. This is the only championship where the two competitions come together to decide the Overall National Champion.

New Zealand competitions has created a preference for competitors to focus on the endurance races instead of short course races. There are significant differences between the Enduro car and a Shortcourse car.

The Enduro car needs to be 'bullet proof' and every component needs to survive the battering of 'race pace' for more than 2 hours non-stop racing. Enduro cars have massive suspension, over 20 inches of wheel travel is common. Gearboxes have to be incredibly robust and imported custom boxes from the USA are common on these race cars with an increasing number of cars now using Porsche Gear Boxes.

The Shortcourse car has to survive only 10 minutes of 'race pace' at a time. The car needs a good "power to weight ratio" and will sacrifice any unrequired component to get lighter. Cars are built with less steel, less suspension and use smaller fuel tanks. The gearbox still has to be good, but does not need to be indestructible and speed wins here instead of reliability.

Offroad Racing Classes and about the Vehicles

Vehicle race numbers begin with the number that identifies the class, for example a class / car's race number starts with "3" e.g. 349 is Class 3/Car 49

Class One: The Unlimited Class. Very fast, occasionally fragile, these cars are the sport's equivalent of World Rally Cars in rallying or F1 in track racing.

Class Three: Using 1.6 litre engines of any brand and with engine modifications unrestricted, but without turbo charging or supercharging, these agile cars are quite capable of winning outright.

Class Five: Any engine up to 3.1 litres, with the superb Suzuki twin cam and similar designs dominant. Light and agile and capable of outright wins on the day.

Challenger Class C Cars: powered by Volkswagen 1.6 litre engines. A closely controlled formula, giving racers more torque and mroe reliability than Class seven. VW suspension only.

Class Seven: Strictly controlled, limited to VW 1.2 litre engines, this claiss is the initiation to offroad racing for many. VW suspension only.

Class Nine: Baja VW- engines restricted, but the car must retain the basis of an original VW Beetle in the spirit of the original Baja buggies that tore across Mexico in the 1960's.

Class Ten: For motorcycle-engined, small but deceptively fast single-seat offroaders. The class had its origins in the Odyssey offroad fun karts, but has outgrown these in technology and pace.

Offroad Truck Classes

Pro Truck Class Two: Production-sourced two and four wheel drive SUVs, this class is allowed changed to maximise safety and reliability but must retain standard bodywork and suspension format.

Sport Truck Class Four : Four and six cylinder modified two and four wheel drive race trucks, allowed more suspension travel but retaining the standard chassis.

Thunder Truck Class Eight: The big noise in offroad racing. Thunder Truck designs are often V8 powered and constructed in tube "space-frame" style. with massive wheels travel and powerful engines adopted from other race disciplines.

Information kindly Supplied by ORANZ & MNZ