Highlands Motorsport Park, New Zealand

SkylineObsession

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SkylineObsession
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http://www.highlands.co.nz/

From above (pic needs updating, as it is a lot greener now).

Track-March-13.jpg


Track maps - three versions of the track can be used at the same time without anyone colliding.

Highlands-Track-map-Sept-2012-300.jpg


Basically, it was built in a year pretty much, for about $30m NZD. Most/every driver that has come along/competed so far has been surprised/shocked/blown away by the facility and a ton of people have said it is right up there with the top circuits in the world (in terms of facilities, appearance, track design and so on).

It also has the only overbridge in Australasia (?) now, since Aussies' awesome Oran Park in Sydney got bulldozed to make way for houses...

I went around Highlands last week in their Porsche Cayenne 'taxi' (officially called the '200km/h taxi ride'), and it is even more impressive from that vantage point (looks really slow in videos, but it's far from it in person).

And the guy giving us the 'taxi' ride said something about the skid pan being the only, or one of the few in the world that uses the exact same surface that the racetrack itself does (instead of concrete etc). And it can be soaked with water in 10 mins (more or less). Lamborghini, Audi and others have already hired out the track for testing, members days and so on.

Put our GoPro on top of the Porsche too and am trying to upload the video at the moment, will post it up when/if it works so you get a proper view of the track, pit lane, skidpan and almost all track layouts.

But yeah. We need more 'down under' representation in GT/videogames, and this would be a great companion to Bathurst!
 
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I think what lets Hampton Downs ... down, is that they ran out of funding and couldn't finish the track etc. Whereas Highlands seems to be eating from a neverending pool of money. I was there in November for the Australian GT final, and there have already been a couple changes to the track layout since then. As well as numerous other things.

Hampton Downs is really only going to flourish when/if the right buyer comes along to do it justice.
 


I can't believe they run GT3 cars here, but they do. It's absolutely insane! If this track was in the game I think I would like it more for racing around 500pp, but they do run GT3 here so it is another GT3 track.
 
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