[raymond]

Originally Posted by HProject

I was the writer of the article on the Velocity NZ page.

I wrote the article based on information I received on Wednesday, followed by the short statement from the V8 SuperTourers on the change in one of their recent PR releases. The quote was from an article on Greg Murphy:

"The 2014 series is now finishing after four rounds with a switch from a year-long championship to a more traditional format with the 2014-15 championship running from late September to April, over seven rounds. Murphy supports this move."

The decision wasn't discussed in further detail beyond that paragraph.

Trusting one of my sources, I went ahead with the article with a tone which mirrored attitudes from a couple of other contacts I had discussed the story with, as well as my initial source.

The tone of the article - not just the headline - however was one sided, and didn't account for moods on the decision from within the SuperTourer paddock. And those moods are quite positive from what I heard today in talking to a selection of people within the SuperTourer paddock.

The 2014 series is ending this weekend - with Murphy likely to be crowned champion in front of his big local crowd. September will see a new calendar commence, a summer series similar to what other tier one categories run will be the result.

The article posted this morning had one critical error in its content barring its tone, in that it stated that the endurance series would be "canned" in the face of this new championship. Today I was informed that the endurance series events - with their revised dates - will make up the opening rounds of the series. Current sponsor deals with teams will overlap into the new season (at least in the case of the one team I talked to today), with the balance of the season in 2015 to be negotiated on by the respective teams.

The article received a long message from Ray Noonan describing it as being "full of shite" as mentioned by promax. While elements of the story were incorrect - namely those above - it is still true that the 2014 season is coming to a close this weekend, and my suggestion in the article that there is potential for events to clash with tier one meetings is a valid one in my opinion (as well as others).

My regret with the article was that no further investigation was made beyond my source and the brief PR mention. The post wasn't written with malice - and Velocity NZ aren't just a group set on posting negative stories as suggested by Noonan. We were the ones to break the story on Australian Steve Owen joining the category early in the week, we were the ones to post the first image of Ant Pedersen's new Burgerfuel Falcon - a new sponsor to the category, and we were also the only people to write an article discussing the fantastic rebuild of Angus Fogg's Property Tutors Commodore.

Following the errors in the article, we deleted it from our Facebook page before sending a message to Noonan with the offer of him sending us a more complete account of what is to come. To date we are yet to receive a reply but I'm sure one will come.

Chur,
Matthew Hansen
VelocityNZ

Thanks for that HP. Good clarification