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Thread: Te Pirita motor racing

  1. #1

    Te Pirita motor racing

    Once upon a time Te Pirita airfield had the longest runways in new zealand designed in case the japanese made it to new zealand. runways were finished off in wattle seeds of all things. Does anyone know anything about the motor racing that took place there please?

  2. #2
    World Champion Roger Dowding's Avatar
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    Te Pirita had not heard of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by jellywrestler View Post
    Once upon a time Te Pirita airfield had the longest runways in new zealand designed in case the japanese made it to new zealand. runways were finished off in wattle seeds of all things. Does anyone know anything about the motor racing that took place there please?
    " Jellywrestler " .. Presume, that is Te Pirita, near Hororata, nearest Town Rolleston Canterbury - there is a Te Pirita Road, and several Airstrips are nearby. including Howards Airstrip and another called Ladbrooks,closer to Christchurch.
    Any location photos around ..

  3. #3
    One track database I've seen lists Te Pirita as a "road circuit used in 1949."

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Roger Dowding View Post
    " Jellywrestler " .. Presume, that is Te Pirita, near Hororata, nearest Town Rolleston Canterbury - there is a Te Pirita Road, and several Airstrips are nearby. including Howards Airstrip and another called Ladbrooks,closer to Christchurch.
    Any location photos around ..
    a military airfield with three 2km landing strips in the usal triangle, normally they would overlap but for some reason two of them do, the third sticks out a bit so theres a short track between them. at the time of building it was nz's longest landing strip, built for B17's. there's a 700000 imperial gallon underground petrol tank 16 kms away at bankside.
    closet point is corner of ardlui, illingworth and haldon roads for te pirita

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  5. #5
    World Champion Roger Dowding's Avatar
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    Te Pirita a map of the original airfield overlaid.

    Quote Originally Posted by jellywrestler View Post
    a military airfield with three 2km landing strips in the usal triangle, normally they would overlap but for some reason two of them do, the third sticks out a bit so theres a short track between them. at the time of building it was nz's longest landing strip, built for B17's. there's a 700000 imperial gallon underground petrol tank 16 kms away at bankside.
    closet point is corner of ardlui, illingworth and haldon roads for te pirita

    \
    Te Pirita - this from " jelliewrestler " - an overlay of the original monochrome on a current Google Map. the Circles are quite prominent on the Google Map -

    Name:  te pirita #16 v3 sml old and new merged cropped (542x800) (2).jpg
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Size:  119.6 KB

  6. #6
    clearly roger is a clever Geek than me, my piccie was too big so he re sized it, thanks roger. the facility was topped off in wattle seed hence the regrowth on part of it, the black and white piccie is merged from two parts by me with a bit of photo shopping to hide the joining lines, then dropped onto a current aerial and is precisely where it was.
    Te Pirita is famous for the church with the open doors, wonder if it was the church of the closed doors during covid level jacinda?

  7. #7
    World Champion Roger Dowding's Avatar
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    Graeme " jw " re ;" clearly roger is a clever Geek than me, my piccie was too big so he re sized it ", Not really, I have difficulty with uploading stuff including trying to take from Google Maps .. and when I get stuff in Adobe Pdf I cannot convert to Jpeg or Jpg, clearly I need more training as a 72 year old " poor pensioner ".
    I had difficulty with the the things from Trevor Sheffield about his Fiat 509 Special - which got sorted when Trevor at the good age of 91 managed to send them to me in two different formats -
    Anyway was happy to do this for you " jw ' and I learnt a bit too - a place I had never heard of - have also put the images on the Old Race Tracks thread - to keep things together..

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