Going up, Down Under

2017 Leadfoot Festival, New Zealand, February 4-5, 2017

Like from the musical ‘Porgy and Bess’…“Summertime and the living is easy…” as it is the peak of the Antipodean summer and racing is very busy in New Zealand. Rod Millen is the famed “Kiwi” racer and an American motorsports icon known for breaking records at Pikes Peak, Mickey Thompson Stadium Trucks, the Baja 1000, and many other international Rally events. The 2017 Leadfoot Festival Hill Climb brought together International and New Zealand racing stars with rare cars that is staged up his ranch driveway in Hahei along the Coromandel Coast and fondly termed the “Millen Mile.” It was the most treacherous and challenging Hill Climb you can imagine with 4 big blind rises (all of the ‘hot cars’ were “catching air” over the rises) as one could not see over the rises, using “blind faith” as big trees lurked along the course. The challenge was with some very acute “hairpin” turns at steep climbs along with the need to carefully “Zig – Zag” though the dark shadowed forest sections. The Hill Climb road also had the legendary blinding New Zealand “Sun Strikes,” as they say here, when coming out of the dense dark woods into the shocking bright blazing sun at times. One GT40 crushed the entire front end and ripped off a wheel and few more cars went off into the trees, over the side, and into hay bales. Each grid or batch had a good mix of cars so fans enjoyed the non-stop viewing while sitting on the hillsides. The batches included Historic, Rally, Off Road, Pikes Peak, Drifters, Side Car motorcycles and even a huge truck that smoked the tires at each turn. Al Unser Jr. was the feature driver and he waved to the fans while racing the 1915 Stutz racer up the hill.