Background Pukehohe Park was one of New Zealand's most historic race tracks, and has long seen links with Australian motor racing. This dates back to the famed
Pukekohe 500, which originally ran from 1984 to 1993 for touring cars and dates back to 1963 for
production cars. Several Australian teams, along with local and international teams, competed in the endurance
Group A event with Australian-based teams winning the event several times. The event was often twinned with the
Wellington 500, on a street circuit in
Wellington City. In
1996, twelve cars from the
Australian Touring Car Championship raced in the Mobil 1 Sprints, a two event series at Pukekohe and Wellington. In a precursor to his later Supercars success at the track, all three races were won by local driver
Greg Murphy for the
Holden Racing Team.
Championship era The first championship round at Pukekohe Park for what was then known as
V8 Supercars was held in
2001, entitled the
Boost Mobile V8 International. It was the first round in the history of the
Australian Touring Car Championship and Supercars not to be contested in Australia.
Mark Skaife sealed the
2001 Shell Championship Series in the first race, while Greg Murphy won the event, taking pole position and winning all three races for the
Kmart Racing Team. Murphy maintained strong form at Pukekohe, winning again in 2002, 2003 and 2005.
Jason Bright was the only other driver to win the event in the first five years, doing so in 2004, while Murphy finished third. In 2005 there was a major accident involving
Craig Baird and
Paul Dumbrell during the third race.
Jamie Whincup slid off the track at the final corner and Baird and Dumbrell squeezed together as Whincup returned to the circuit. However, Baird and Dumbrell came together and spun, both hitting the wall before coming to rest on opposite sides of the track with severely damaged cars. The race was red flagged as a result.
Hiatus The New Zealand event moved to the
Hamilton Street Circuit for 2008 and remained there until 2012.
Return Supercars returned to a slightly modified Pukekohe layout in 2013 and the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy was introduced. In 2014, Ford's
Mark Winterbottom was the event winner, marking the first win at the event for
Ford in its ninth running. The event was run over the
Anzac Day long weekend, including a race on a Friday for the first time in championship history. In 2015 and 2017,
Jamie Whincup, who was a teammate of Jason Richards in 2005 at
Tasman Motorsport and co-drove with him to a second-place finish at the
2005 Bathurst 1000, won the trophy. In 2016,
Shane van Gisbergen became the first New Zealand driver to win the trophy. In 2018, championship combatants van Gisbergen and
Scott McLaughlin each took a first and second in the two races, with McLaughlin winning the event on a countback due to his higher Sunday result. The same two drivers won races in the 2019 event, which moved to a September date, with van Gisbergen this time winning the trophy. In winning the Sunday race, which included a controversial safety car that shuffled the field, McLaughlin surpassed
Craig Lowndes'
1996 record of 16 wins in a season.
2020 move and cancellation As in 2013, the 2020 Pukekohe event was scheduled on the Anzac Day weekend. It was later discovered that an amendment to
Auckland Council's Unitary Plan in the intermediary period prohibited racing on the public holiday. As such the event was to be moved to the nearby
Hampton Downs Motorsport Park, and was to continue to be known as the Auckland Super400 despite being located in the neighbouring
Waikato region. The event was later postponed, rescheduled to January 2021 (within the prolonged 2020 championship) and then cancelled altogether - all due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 event was similarly cancelled due to the border issues arising from the pandemic. ==Winners==