Fast Facts: ITM Auckland SuperSprint

1. Every Virgin Australia Supercars Championship driver competing at Pukekohe will be racing for the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy, named in honour of the late Kiwi racer who passed away from a rare form of cancer in 2011.Jason Bright (2013), Mark Winterbottom (2014) and Jamie Whincup (2015) are the three men who have won the coveted trophy over the last three years.

2. Virgin Australia Supercars Championship leader Shane van Gisbergen will celebrate his 300th championship race in the first Sunday race at Pukekohe.He could become the first New Zealand-born champion since Jim Richards in 1991 should he claim this year’s crown.

3. Greg Murphy remains the ‘King of Pukekohe’ with nine race wins and four round victories between 2001 and 2005. The New Zealander won seven of the first eight Supercars Championship races held at Pukekohe across 2001, 2002 and 2003.

4. Holden has proven to be dominant at Pukekohe, winning 27 of the 32 Supercars races held there since the first round in New Zealand in 2001.Ford teams have proven to be stronger in the era of New Generation race cars though, claiming four of the last nine races at Pukekohe.

5. Just four drivers – Craig Lowndes, Jason Bright, Todd Kelly and Garth Tander – have competed in every VASC round held at Pukekohe since the first in 2001.

6. Craig Lowndes remains winless at Pukekohe in his Supercars career. Despite lining up for 32 individual races at the Kiwi track he’s never finished better than second.

7. This year is the 11th time Pukekohe has hosted the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship. The venue hosted the championship between 2001 and 2007 before the New Zealand leg of the championship moved to a street circuit in Hamilton between 2008 and 2012. The event returned to Pukekohe in 2013 and has remained there ever since.

8. Scott McLaughlin beat Jamie Whincup to ARMOR ALL Pole Position by just 0.0014s for last year’s Sunday race at Pukekohe – it is the closest pole-winning margin at the circuit in championship history.

9. With its relatively short length and fast average speed, Pukekohe has always been a track where things are close – the last 10 ARMOR ALL Pole Positions in a row at the venue have each been determined by less than a tenth of a second.In fact, six of those 10 have been determined by less than five-hundredths of a second!

10. Erebus Motorsport V8’s Shae Davies and Super Black Racing’s Chris Pither are the two only drivers in the 2016 field to have never raced a Supercar at Pukekohe until this year.Both have experience at the circuit in other categories.

Click here for all the information you need ahead of the ITM Auckland SuperSprint, which kicks off on Friday.