Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon

Overview

Manfeild: Circuit Chris Amon is the motor racing circuit of Manfeild Park on South Street in Feilding, in New Zealand's Manawatu region, about 20 minutes from Palmerston North Airport. The circuit sits within roughly 72 hectares of parkland managed by the Manfeild Park Trust, which also runs a stadium, arenas and event spaces used for conferences, exhibitions, concerts, agricultural shows and equestrian competitions. On the motorsport side the venue welcomes everything from grassroots club meetings to national championships, and its programme has ranged from drift and endurance racing to trucks and the Toyota Racing Series. The circuit is also hired for driver training, track days, product launches, hot laps, cycling and skating.

Technical Specifications and Track Features

The main 3.03 km circuit is 12 metres wide and holds an FIA Grade 3 licence. It combines three straights with cambered corners, and its best known features are the esses, the hairpin and a double apex corner, a mix that gives drivers several passing opportunities. Inside the site lies a separate 1.5 km Driver Training Circuit, also 12 metres wide but laid without camber and with a mixture of fast and slow corners, so that it behaves more like an ordinary road and suits driver training and vehicle testing. The two can be joined into a 4.5 km combined circuit. Circuit activity is governed by a noise resource consent that allows 20 category A days and 80 category B days a year for the loudest events.

Facilities and Specialized Areas

A three-level control tower houses the race day office on the ground floor, the stewards room on the first level and the commentary, timing and operations room above. The paddock offers a scrutineering shed, an open pit bay building with 30 powered spaces, ten lockable pit lane garages with three-phase power, water and compressed air, and twelve smaller single garages with workbenches. The circuit is equipped with an Alitrax race lights system and public address systems for spectators and the pits. Five corporate pitlane suites, including the Manfeild Suite and the Higgins Suite, take groups of up to 160 people. Competition events must be run by clubs affiliated to Motorsport New Zealand or Motorcycling New Zealand under permit, and the Manawatu Car Club, the resident club, can provide marshalling and rescue crews.

History

The circuit was built by the Manawatu Car Club and opened in October 1973 as Manfeild Autocourse, a name that combines Manawatu and Feilding. In 1990 extra land was acquired and a new loop extended the facility to full international standards, creating a full circuit of 4.511 km. Manfeild hosted rounds of the World Superbike Championship in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1992, and it staged the New Zealand Grand Prix seventeen times, from 1992 to 1995 and again from 2008 to 2020. In October 2004 the Manawatu District Council, the Feilding Industrial, Agricultural and Pastoral Association and the Manawatu Car Club placed their land in the newly formed Manfeild Park Trust. In 2016 the Trust renamed the main racetrack Manfeild: Circuit Chris Amon in honour of the local Formula One driver. The outright lap record of 1:01.457 was set by Simon Wills in a Reynard Formula Holden in November 2000.