New King to be crowned at Kohatu

This weekend sees 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 form favourite, sharing the spectacular Semog Cross Car with the machines owner and his brother, Tim Alexander.

Paul Bugler completes a trio of Marlborough Cross Car drivers who will be up against young gun Ollie Ward from Wellington in his similar machine. Ollie will be sharing his Cross car with another young driver, Ryan Howden who is making the trip to King of Kohatu from Invercargill.

Ryan is the South Island ambassador for Heartkids 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 Heart Kids Ambassador, Ryan is looking forward to being able to show fellow Heartkids what he can do.

Having competed with his family at club motorsport events around Invercargill, Ryan 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 there 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," says Ryan.

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 light weight 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’s expected to be a large U16 youth class.

Carey says "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. 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 four wheel drive rally cars to standard road cars. The road cars will be competing in their own class, affectionately named the "Mums 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 years King of Kohatu will be crowned.

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