ALL AMERICAN DREAM

Like many things from the land of opportunity, American motorsport is something that has long had a big-brother influence on what happens here in New Zealand. Right from the earliest events held here in the ’20s, it wasn’t long before an American Stutz was imported and promptly began to dominate. Soon after we’d been introduced to open-wheel speedway, drag racing emerged, and from that point the floodgates truly opened. Just look at the motorsport landscape here today — you can’t go far without seeing how what has happened on the eastern side of the Pacific has shaped our motorsport landscape. We’re not alone, either, as there are plenty of other countries who have adopted this motorsport way of life.

But not all American motorsports have become global. In fact, any attempts to globalize Nascar have never really fired on all cylinders, meaning that the only time you’ll be lucky enough to watch a race of these tin-top stock cars is by flicking on pay-per-view TV or hopping on a big bird to cross the sea and purchasing a ticket to sit in the likes of the 235,000-seat Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

For Paul Dewar, American motorsport has always been alluring, having raced the dirt ovals in sprint cars and modifieds for a decade, even earning a 1NZ