The Highlands 101 is an endurance motor race which is held at Highlands Motorsport Park near

Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The race for GT cars was established in 2013 as the showpiece event for the newly opened racetrack. The race runs for 101 laps of the 4.1 km circuit for a total race distance of . From 2016, the race is run as a round of the Australian Endurance Championship.

Background

The race attracts a large field of cars from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and New Zealand. The final round of the

Australian GT Championship The Australian GT Championship is a CAMS-sanctioned national title for drivers of GT cars, held annually from 1960 to 1963, from 1982 to 1985 and from 2005. Each championship up to and including the 1963 title was contested over a single race a ...

is held each year on the Saturday of the Highlands 101 race weekend, ensuring a large field of Australian racing teams as well as New Zealand teams who enter independent of the Australian series entry. Since 2016, the race is also a part of the Australian Endurance Championship. The Highlands 101 itself is run on the Sunday of the race weekend. The South Island Endurance Series also provides entries to the race. The race is held in November each year to maximise the potential for favourable weather conditions and the maximise the number of Australian race team to enter the event. The race meeting also includes the Highlands 1+01, 1 hour plus 1 lap, for domestic New Zealand GT racing teams and the Highlands 10+1 which features three races of 11 (10+1) laps for the New Zealand Euromarque category. The race features a variation of the traditional Le Mans start. The car is parked in traditional Le Mans formation, while co-drivers are positioned about 250 meters from the circuit, and must run to their car parked on pit lane. Once there, the co-driver pulls the flag from the car, and the primary driver is allowed to leave. The cars are parked on pit lane, and the pit lane speed limit will be in effect until the car leaves pit lane.

History

The first two years of the event were won by the circuit's owner, Scottish-Australian businessman Tony Quinn. Quinn, driving for his VIP Holdings team, was in each year co-driving with a professional

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driver;

Fabian Coulthard Fabian "Fabs" Coulthard (born 28 July 1982) is a British-born New Zealand professional race car driver, currently competing in the Repco Supercars Championship, driving as an endurance co-driver for Chaz Mostert with Walkinshaw Andretti United ...

in 2013 and

Garth Tander Garth Tander (born 31 March 1977) is a multiple-championship winning Australian motor racing driver competing in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship's Enduro Cup, co-driving the No. 97 Holden ZB Commodore for Triple Eight Race Engineer ...

in 2014. The 2014 event was particularly dramatic with Tander charging through the field in the closing laps, resetting the lap record on the penultimate lap. The race-leading

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of Richard Muscat ran out of fuel on the last lap of the race, giving the win to Quinn and Tander. In 2015, Erebus Motorsport was again leading late in the race, this time until the

Jack Le Brocq Jack Le Brocq (born 7 July 1992) is an Australian professional racing driver. He currently competes in the Repco Supercars Championship, and drives the No. 34 Holden Commodore ZB for Matt Stone Racing. So far, Le Brocq's career highlights incl ...

and

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Mercedes-Benz was overtaken by the second VIP Holdings

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and Klark Quinn (son of Tony) with two laps remaining. 2016 saw Scott Taylor Motorsport take out the event, albeit without their eponymous team owner who missed the race injured.

Winners

Multiple winners

By driver

By manufacturer

References

{{reflist Australian GT Championship Auto races in New Zealand Recurring sporting events established in 2013 Sport in Otago Sports car races