2004 PlaceMakers V8 International

The 2004 PlaceMakers V8 International was a motor race for V8 Supercars held on the weekend of 2 - 4 April 2004. The event was held at the Pukekohe Park Raceway in Pukekohe, New Zealand, and consisted of three races culminating in 300 kilometers. It was the third round of thirteen in the 2004 V8 Supercar Championship Series and the only international event on the calendar.

2004 PlaceMakers V8 International

Event Information
Round 3 of 13 in the 2004 V8 Supercar Championship Series
Date	2–4 April 2004
Location	Pukekohe, New Zealand
Venue	Pukekohe Park Raceway
Weather	Friday: Overcast/Sunny Saturday: Heavy rain Sunday: Overcast
Results
Race 1 Distance 36 laps 100 km Pole position Mark Skaife Holden Racing Team 1:04.7477 Winner Marcos Ambrose Stone Brothers Racing 36:51.8458
Race 2 Distance 36 laps 100 km Winner Jason Bright Paul Weel Racing 37:05.4230
Race 3 Distance 36 laps 100 km Winner Jason Bright Paul Weel Racing 34:59.8159
Round Results First Jason Bright Paul Weel Racing 190 pts Second Marcos Ambrose Stone Brothers Racing 184 pts Third Greg Murphy John Kelly Racing 182 pts

After three years of the event running, Jason Bright ended Greg Murphy's dominance by taking two out of three race wins and the overall round win. The Kiwi wound up finishing in third place overall, behind defending series champion, Marcos Ambrose.

Murphy, as ever, was the favourite heading into the round. At this stage, Murphy had been undefeated at Pukekohe Park Raceway, in terms of overall round victories. Local media lapped Murphy up the entire week preceeding the event with the Kiwi conducting hundreds of interviews, including one instance of 19 individual media interviews within an hour.^[1]

From 2001 to 2003, the Pukekohe event was held in early November, at the tail end of the championship. For 2004 onwards, the event was moved forward to early April.

Bright claimed provisional pole position ahead of the top-ten shootout with a time three-tenths faster than nearest competitor and championship leader, Ambrose. The Holden Racing Team pair of Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly lamented their relative lack of engine power compared to Bright. The former HRT driver brushed off these comments, suggesting that, "...they are not as bad as they are making out, they just don't have the power advantage they want or have had in the past,". Murphy clamoured into the shootout too, although like his TWR counterparts, suggested that his car didn't have the pace to properly compete with Bright. ^[2]

The shootout was held in treacherous conditions. Cars were aquaplaning all over the track, thus Bargwanna kicked off proceedings with a somewhat conservative lap. Murphy was the first to lay down a notable improvement; going 1.3 seconds faster than previous fastest, Steven Richards. Eventually, as the grip improved ever so slightly, Skaife and Ambrose able lay down faster times. Skaife's pole position was hoped to be a return to form after a torrid first two rounds of the championship for the five-time champion.

Controversy arose as the officials decided that, due to flooding of the track, the first race of the weekend would be postponed to Sunday instead of its originally scheduled Saturday afternoon slot. It was also suggested that cars be moved to higher ground as water levels were rising to dangerous levels. Overnight, water levels rose around the pitlane area. Some team members stayed in the paddock through the night in case the water levels started to pose a threat to the teams cars and equipment. Despite the obvious disappointment for the attending crowd, drivers and officials generally agreed that the decision to postpone the race was the right one.^[5]

Come Sunday, the race would start at 10:00am, with the conditions having markedly improved, albeit still damp. Mark Skaife threw away his front row start, adding to an array of poor starts that were starting to become an evident trend with him. Ambrose seized the advantage and took the lead with Jason Bright following in behind. The consertina effect at the hairpin resulted in Russell Ingall being tagged by John Bowe and sent into a spin. This scattered the pack, but remarkably, did not result in a crash of any sort. Tony Longhurst encountered his own problems after being forced off on the entry to the hairpin; having to use the tracks perimeter to avoid being stuck in the gravel trap.

The track began to gradually dry up and team began to experiment with tyres. Craig Baird and Paul Dumbrell were the first drivers to pit for slick tyres. Soon enough, they began to surge through the field, with Baird eventually working up to ninth place after starting in 29th. Skaife's nightmare run continued after being spun by Steven Richards at the hairpin. Richards also sustained damage to the rear of his car after being clipped by Max Wilson. Skaife subsequently retreated to the pits to gamble on the slick tyres. Garth Tander attempted a move of his own on Paul Morris at the same part of the circuit. These efforts resulted in a spin after he locked his rear tyres. Dumbrell's efforts on the slick tyres were curtailed after straying offline, t-boning Jason Bargwanna and putting them both into a spin at turn two.

Ambrose remained untroubled to the flag, taking the first win on New Zealand soil for the Ford brand. Bright was eight seconds behind in second place, and a further ten seconds behind him was the highest-placed Kiwi driver, Paul Radisich.

Ambrose struggled off the line and lost second place to Murphy on the approach to turn two. At the end of the first lap, Radisich strayed wide at the top of Ford Mountain, spun at the mid-point of the main straight, and narrowly missed being broadsided by multiple cars.

On lap 9, Skaife retired due to a bent steering arm that he sustained whilst racing Max Wilson, who also retreated to the pitlane with ignition coil issues. Warren Luff speared off into the gravel trap at turn three when attempting to avoid a spinning Mark Porter. At the same time, Brad Jones was spun at the hairpin by Steven Ellery. Just moments later, Glenn Seton spun at a perilous position on the approach to Ford Mountain whilst trying to avoid a commotion between the two Larkham Motorsport cars. Bargwanna retired due to rear suspension problems incurred while racing Morris. In all the melee, the safety car was deployed.

As the laps whittled down, Murphy began to reign Bright in. With six laps remaining, the gap was down to under a second. Lowndes was beset with leaking fluid from the engine bay but managed to keep circulating until the very end. Bright withstood the charge from Murphy to take victory, delivering on the pace shown in practice and qualifying. Ambrose finished third, eight seconds behind the pair.

Off the line, Murphy and Bright were evenly matched, with the latter retaining the lead entering the back straight. As the race settled down, Bright began to put some distance between himself and the rest of the field. Murphy meanwhile found himself under attack from Ambrose.

On lap eight, Ambrose pulled an aggressive move on Murphy at turn four to move up into second place. Mark Winterbottom was experiencing fuel surge problems, forcing him to switch to the reserve tank. Eventually, these problems became too much and was forced to retire from the race. The race was relatively stagnant, up until the final laps when Murphy began to reel Ambrose in again. On lap 32, Murphy made an audacious pass on Ambrose around the outside of turns six and seven. Dale Brede also spun in front of Bright at turn three, throwing mud and water on the racing line.

Nevertheless, Bright remained undeterred. Even a tyre failure on the part of Morris, who was sent into the wall at Ford Mountain heavily on the last corner of the last lap wouldn't prevent Bright from taking the chequered flag first, winning the overall round and being the first driver to defeat Murphy from round honours in the history of the Pukekohe event. Murphy finished second, Ambrose third, but in terms of round points, Ambrose would finish second and Murphy third.

While the popularity of V8 Supercars in New Zealand enticed officials to explore the possibility of a second championship round in the region, the status of Pukekohe's place on the calendar was up in the air. AVESCO were unsatisfied with the condition of the Pukekohe Park Raceway facilities and thus the search was on for a new home. Multiple venues had submitted proposals to take over the calendar slot from 2006 onwards. These included Wellington, Manfeild and a street race in Auckland. Manfeild's proposal was described by AVESCO chairman Tony Cochrane as being, "...equal of any we have seen in the history of AVESCO - that includes proposals from some of the world's largest and wealthiest cities".^[9]

Ultimately, the Auckland street race won proposal won out and the event was expected to replace Pukekohe from April 2006 onwards. An estimate 170,000 people were expected to attend the event which would've taken place right in the heart of Auckland's city centre.^[10] Soon after the announcement, safety concerns arose to the circuits configuration, the disruption to proceedings in the CBD and other costs associated with the event. And eventually, the project fell through, the promoter IMG having spent over a million dollars in establishing it. The event would return to Pukekohe for three more years before ceding the event to Hamilton in 2008.