15 Feb 2013

Hampton Downs on the block

1:16 pm on 15 February 2013

The Hampton Downs motor raceway near Auckland is up for either a full or partial sale.

Owners Tony Roberts and Chris Watson want investment or a full sale of the 141-hectare motorsport facility, which is located 60 kilometres south of central Auckland.

The managing director Roberts says they need investment in order to develop Hampton Downs and take it to the next level as he and Watson have taken it about as far as they can on their limited resources.

Hampton Downs missed out on hosting the local leg of the Australian V8 Supercars, which is instead running at nearby Pukekohe Park Raceway in April.

Hampton Downs is widely regarded as a superior facility but is short of full V8 Supercars standards and was overlooked for the raceway at Pukekohe, which is in the Auckland catchment area.

Hamilton hosted the Supercars from 2008 to 2012 in an unsuccessful and unprofitable stint as a street circuit.

Roberts says their facility is operating successfully and running at near capacity with more than 330 days per year of usage and they need funds to develop a 1.2-kilometre track extension to enable three track options including the full international 3.8-kilometre circuit.

Late last year resource consent enabling daily spectator numbers to be increased from 20,000 to 50,000 for major events was approved by the Waikato District Council