In petrolhead heaven filming Checkered Flag (Photo: Supplied)
In petrolhead heaven filming Checkered Flag (Photo: Supplied)

SportsApril 18, 2024

Confessions of an unlikely petrolhead

Guest writer
In petrolhead heaven filming Checkered Flag (Photo: Supplied)
In petrolhead heaven filming Checkered Flag (Photo: Supplied)

Checkered Flag director Natalie Wilson on her lifelong love of motorsport, and the allure of Pukekohe Park Raceway.

One childhood summer when my world revolved around winning stuff off the radio, I bagged tickets to Western Springs Speedway and then to Waikaraka Park in what was a dream season for my redial thumb.  The thrill for me was the win – I had absolutely no idea what a speedway was. But I remember my dad being suspiciously wiling to celebrate my achievement on his weekends and I remember enjoying it a lot more than my sisters. 

Once the radio ticket well ran dry, I convinced someone to pay actual money to take me again. Giddy with dutch-angle-photojournalistic delusions I got trigger happy with my camera’s “foggy-corner” filter and captured possibly the worst photos ever taken of Western Springs. Objectively bad – I’ve taken better by accident from inside my bag – but also personally devastating because I genuinely believed I was siphoning some of the magic that was overloading all of my little senses onto film. The demented swarm of roaring engines, dirt bullets pelting my face, nostrils full of fumes, lips dry from salty chips and thin sauce. Maybe capturing something of the guilty tension between willing the metal to crunch and fear of witnessing something horrible, or the glory of seeing my car – the one I’d picked moments ago – taking a victory lap, checkered flag out the window. But no.

Three decades later, in a quiet corner at the loud end of a friend’s party it came out that the new colleague I was talking to was a speedway regular too. Buoyed by our surprising commonality, the lovely little chat we embarked on soon slammed full speed into the wall as I, without filter, uttered one of the Top 5 of most shamefully-bogan things I’ve ever said. Verbatim: “Every car, I feel like I’m right there in it. Sometimes, I am the car.” Pump the goddamn brakes. Chuck it into reverse. Too late. 

Facing the fact that I uttered these words comes with the admission that they’re true. And my visceral response is not reserved for big, dumb (jeez I love it) speedway or whatever racing I’m watching. It’s drip-fed when my car and I execute a flawless manoeuvre like the Torvill and Dean of parallel parking, when my friends get me on a racetrack for my birthday, or when I see my dream car in the flesh and pull alongside, window down… 

Of course I’m going to profess my love to the strangers in the black De Tomaso Pantera and of course they accommodate me with amused grins. Not until later do I think about how from their perspective, here’s an unlikely 40-year-old woman, in a filthy station wagon, leaning across her son yelling, “Is that a ‘71? How come I’ve never seen it before!? A recent import?” and whatever else I could squeeze in before the light turned green.

On the grid at Pukekohe Park (Photo: Supplied)

And while gender, age and parental status aren’t exclusionary factors, I don’t really know how I ended up here. I’ve never had a big-time-car-person friend (I’ve also ended friendships over reckless overtaking), I know firsthand what a horror crash feels like (and have been lucky to survive with just epilepsy), and since the Datsun I got when I was too young to sit my learner’s license I’ve never had a cool or modern car – I get older, they stay the same age (about 18). All that and of course, I’m now aware that petrol cars are killing us, which is a pretty valid reason for ignoring these urges. 

On occasion I get called a petrolhead but I feel deeply unqualified for this title. Maybe it’s semantics, but it seems that knowing how petrol works should be a requirement for starters. My mechanical knowledge is rudimentary at a stretch and it takes me 2.5 days at Pick-A-Part to do what F1 pit crews nail in 1.8 seconds. Car Enthusiast? That seems like it’s for people who are enthusiastic about modern auto technology and my 22-year-old Toyota Corolla covered in lichen cackles at the suggestion. 

Pukekohe Park Raceway (Photo: Checkered Flag)

So I’m settling on motorsport being a spectrum and if you’re on it, where you sit is irrelevant to your right to enjoy it. As far as inclusion goes, Pukekohe Park Raceway felt like coming home – for me over the final months of its life and for untold others over the previous 60 years. For every Shane Van Gisbergen are thousands more who know exactly how petrol works but would never attempt the speeds. There are those who pull onto the track with a hand raised bike that sounds like popcorn and doesn’t make it off the start line. Young teens who hit breakneck speeds but legally require Mum and Dad to drive them home down State Highway 1, and six-foot-four units who maintain their Mazda Demio is the perfect racecar for them – headroom for days! There are armies who are deep in motorsport but exclusively from the pits or the stands and those who come alone, year after year, and sit under their favourite tree on the hill, eating salty chips with thin sauce, quietly having their senses overwhelmed.

As a seriously under-qualified petrolhead and an overqualified opportunist, I completed far more laps of Pukekohe than were needed to make the documentary. My favourites were at sunset, making extra engine noises with my mouth as required, my son changing gears from the passenger seat, lichen edges ruffling as I nudged it just above road speed. Absolute glory.

Checkered Flag is available to watch on The Spinoff now. Made with support from NZ On Air.

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Shorts would have been fine.
Shorts would have been fine.

OPINIONSocietyApril 9, 2024

Let everyone wear shorts for sports

Staff writer
Shorts would have been fine.
Shorts would have been fine.

With gymnasts now allowed to wear shorts while competing, Gabi Lardies wonders why other codes are still catching up.

Last week, Gymnastics New Zealand announced an overhaul of its competition attire rules. Now, people that are very good at jumping through the air while doing the splits are allowed to wear shorts and have their bra straps slip while they perform these miracles.

It’s a positive announcement, but it’s also bleak, because it’s pointed out that all this time things have not been the way they obviously should be. It is disappointing that in 2024 we do not live in utopia but merely a high-tech archaism, but here we are, letting gymnasts who are women wear shorts in competitions for the first time.

Shorts, a comfortable and practical garment allowing ease of movement by uncovering the knees, have been around for at least a couple of hundred years. They’ve gone from attire for little boys, to getting big pockets and being worn by militaries, to denim cut-offs which questioned authority, to tiny clingy hot pants in the 70s, then they got long and baggy again as the 90s rolled around. Since then anything goes unless you’ve been a woman pursuing certain athletic accolades.

Female gymnasts have had to wear leotards, AKA undies attached to a top. Often the top has long sleeves, but god – well, rules – forbade these athletes cover their legs. It’s true that it’s a sport where the body needs to be free to move in all sorts of contortions but Cathy Freeman proved in 2000 that a body in head to toe lycra can outrun competitors wearing next to nothing. It’s also true that many wanting to take part in gymnastics are going through puberty and while we all understand pubic hairs do not naturally stick to the confines of undies, many young women may die of embarrassment should their pubes be spotted. Meanwhile, the male gymnasts have been wearing unitards with long legs, and loose short shorts.

Young gymnast performing on balance beam. (Photo: Getty)

Ex-rhythmic gymnasts have told the Herald that the expectations went beyond bare legs, make-up and hair. Being skinny is expected, and judgemental comments are made by coaches and other gymnasts. It seems that for young women, participating in some sports comes with a set of requirements to look a certain way – some will love it, and others simply won’t take part. Having to put on a leotard, makeup, do your hair perfectly and be skinny can easily take the fun out of it.

It isn’t just what gymnasts have had to wear. The Football Ferns had to wear white shorts until their new kits for the world cup last year. Anyone who menstruates knows that is just dangerous (and therefore anxiety-inducing). The England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club also let go of white bottoms at Wimbledon only in July last year, shortly after the Football Ferns’ announcement.

Following the whites in impracticality are the dresses. Short, tight dresses seen on netball courts. In 2022, Netball New Zealand issued a statement on uniforms to “encourage participation by removing overly strict/historic uniform barriers”. The statement allowed players to wear items for religious or cultural reasons such as hijab and taonga. It also allowed uniforms to be dresses, skirts, skorts or shorts and allowed long leggings, sports briefs and bike shorts to be worn underneath. 

This is all very well and good, but uniforms aren’t provided by Netball NZ. While uniforms are allowed to be shorts, shorts may not always be made an option by the school or club. Or worse, a local authority may not approve – in 2009 (a while ago, mind you), a social netball team that wore shorts were asked not to by Netball Manawatu, despite Netball NZ saying the only clothing requirement in the rules was positional bibs. 

The Silver Ferns at the Netball World Cup 2019. Photo: Getty.

Official ink on paper rules are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to people’s, and especially women’s, appearances. Expectations are baked into the history of sport and culture. Bikinis are the most common uniform among female beach volleyball players, even though the International Volleyball Federation rules changed in 2012 to allow them to wear shorts or sleeved tops. Over a decade later players still choose bikinis to wear in often scorching sun because it’s been instilled into the sport. I would say that if you’re doing sports on solid ground the togs, togs, togs, undies rule applies but others say it’s easier to move in a bikini. 

Wearing undies to play sports seems at odds with what we’ve got at our disposal. There’s many high-performance textiles that have moisture management systems, muscle compression panels, aerodynamic advantages and temperature control. If you’re wearing the smallest garment possible, you will get less of these benefits. It would appear to be much better to wear as much as possible, from head to toe. In fact, swimmers (the only sport where bikinis or undies might make sense) tried to make the most of technology with full-body tech suits, and those have since been banned. Why are other sporting codes so slow to evolve beyond uniforms that make women look more “lady-like”?

Missing out on the benefits of high-tech fabrics isn’t the biggest loss associated with small attire. The biggest loss is the people who would have loved to jump in the air while doing the splits but didn’t, because they didn’t want to do it in undies. Hopefully now they’ll have the chance.