Racing Films

“No hitting the driver’s door, that’s a no no!  Otherwise there are no more rules…”, this pretty much sums up the ethos behind ‘Kaikohe Demolition’.  When you look at tourist books about visiting New Zealand one activity that is often not featured is dirt track speedway racing.  I would go as far to suggest that New Zealand probably has the most speedways per capita anywhere in the world.  While rugby is the national sport, during the summer months, no matter what part of the country you are in, you probably have a speedway nearby that you could head along to on a Friday or Saturday night.  Some events, like the annual Superstock Teams Championships held in Palmerston North, draw massive crowds.  The Speedway New Zealand website lists 23 affiliated speedways, but there are many more around the country, some are used regularly and others are more occasionally run privately owned set ups.  This film focuses on the characters who compete at Kaikohe speedway which operates at the more clandestine end of the speedway spectrum in a converted farmers paddock.

Kaikohe Demolition is the polar opposite of the ‘The Last Race’ which I recently reviewed.  This film focuses on some of the people and characters that are behind the metal bending action on the track.  As with many New Zealand small towns Kaikohe is not short of characters.  In this film we get to find out a bit about Ben, the hilarious Uncle Bimm, John and his wife Carmen, Alamein and a host of other delightful cameos.  The main plot focuses on John Zielinski and some of the people who work for him in his forestry company.  John helps a lot of his younger and older workers to get cars ready which he supplies to them “on tick”, a New Zealand term for credit you have to pay back.  John seems to have two main motivations for this; one he sees it as a positive activity for the town and the guys who work for him to get involved in and two, the more mates he has out on track the better his chances of success are.  This is highlighted when John points out that Uncle Bimm has a reputation as a hitman and he can slip him “ten bucks” to have go at taking someone out.  The arrangement seems to suit Uncle Bimm pretty well too as he is mainly in it for the carnage anyway.

Off the track Uncle Bimm is hilarious, he drops one liner after one liner in all of the interviews with him.  A passion for cars seems to run in the blood for him.  In one of the interviews he is sitting in a 1957 Hillman Minx in a paddock, he explains that the car used to belong to his grandfather who left it to him and adds, “I’m glad he left me a legacy, I just wish it was Subaru Legacy”!

After an introduction to the town and the main characters the film begins to focus on race preparation.  In New Zealand there is an ample supply of old vehicles suitable for demolition racing.  One thing visitors to NZ often comment to me on is the number of older vehicles on the road.  Because of New Zealand’s remote location and low level of manufacturing, laws regarding the importation of vehicles have always been fairly relaxed and there are no taxes or road user chargers to discourage people from hanging on to older vehicles.  This results in there being ready access to cheap, non-roadworthy cars that are destined for the wreckers anyway, perfect for conversion into a demolition banger.  We get an insight into the preparations for upcoming races through a guided tour of the town from John.  He takes us around to meet some of the “other demo men, some sneaky characters” starting with Alamein who John says “…has about 12 kids, so this will be interesting”.  Preparation goes on right up until race day where, after some heavy rain, tires need to be adjusted for the conditions by cutting additional grooves with a chainsaw.  Not something you often see at the start of a damp F1 race.

A subplot to the demolition racing is the story of the town itself.  Kaikohe is situated in the far North of New Zealand and is home to around 4500 people.  The town is rural and the area is said to have high levels of deprivation, this is despite it being very close to some of the North Island's major tourist hot spots like Paihia and Kerikeri.   One of the main characters of the film, the softly spoken Ben, goes to lengths to point out the positive aspects of Kaikohe and says “…it’s wonderful”.  Ben talks about his life there saying he is a doorman at a local hotel and also runs anger management programmes for men.  He describes how he once went to London and didn’t like it there so came home.   For someone like Ben the quiet life of Kaikohe suits him, it is a slower more relaxed way of living where everyone knows each other and their business. 

Kaikohe as a community also has a predominately Māori population with 78% of the residents identifying as Māori.  The strength of the Māori culture of the area is reflected throughout the film, with most of the background music being in Māori.  The opening sequence of the film is backed by a karanga which is a traditional call, almost always sung by a female, welcoming people and bringing forth those who are to be engaged in the business of the day.  The karanga at the start of this film is both haunting and beautiful.  Starting the film in this way is the appropriate way to welcome viewers to the film and sets a tone highlighting the prominence that the culture and the people will have throughout the film.  This is a marvellous juxtaposition; a traditional ancient culture colliding with rumbling engines and crunching metal. 

The local Ngāwhā hot springs feature regularly in the film as this is where a lot of the locals, including the demolition participants go to relax and have a chat.  The hot springs have been kept in a very authentic way, basically mud pools with some wooden decking and shelters constructed around to help with access.  One of the locals describes these by saying “It may look patu but it’s lovely”.  (Patu meaning crap).  I think this sums up what the film is really getting at, on the surface the speedway, the racing and the town all look downtrodden or underwhelming, but underneath the surface view there is vibrant community, strong friendships, a ton of humour and beauty.   The demolition racing is something that brings this community together and anyone who wants to, can compete on a level playing field or in this case a dirt oval, in the interests of having a good time.  This gets amplified when the last race featured in the film is won by a 15 year old girl.

Overall this film is hilarious and beautiful.  The humour comes form all of the wonderful characters and the beauty is brought out by highlighting the culture that is prominent in this small New Zealand town.  For viewers from New Zealand this film will bring a light hearted reflection on some classic kiwi living, for those not from NZ it shows a side of the country that is not often featured in the glossy travel magazines. The film shows how a simple thing like a small dirt track in a paddock brings people together for some “hell raising and a lot of fun”. 

My rating, five Hartley’s.