Ten laps of fast and free-flowing racing on rocky forest roads where the cars touched 200 km/h, two laps of ‘hard yakka’ as the slower sandy tracks under the forest canopy turned choppy, and the chequered flag at this year’s North Harbour Woodhill 100  on Queen’s Birthday weekend fell on Hamilton racer Paul Smith’s Jimco class one car.
Early on in this year’s epic 240km sprint the race was led by Jardyne Lammers and Tony McCall. However Lammers was soon sidelined with two flat tyres and McCall’s day was cut short when he hit a deer and broke his BSL Chev’s front suspension and steering.
Nevil Basalaj, John Morgan and Karl Fenton also enjoyed time up front before Smith crossed the finish line after 12 laps to win the race by more than two minutes.
Visibly fatigued by the punishing drive “and so many cars to overtake”, Smith said he hadn’t really been sure until race control confirmed the win, finding the final 40 km harder than the 200 that had gone before.
“The early laps were fast, but then the sand tracks became incredibly difficult in those final two laps, they had really dug out so I couldn’t keep a lot of speed in there,” he said.
Only 12 cars out of 78 finished the whole 12 lap distance.