enjoying a day off work

Motor racing is not top of the marketing budget for most new franchises, but look on the back of David Dovey’s V8 Falcon and you’ll see not one but three unfamiliar brands under the Exceed Home banner. The Exceed Maintenance franchise, which specialises in repairing aluminium window and door joinery, has recently branched out into other sectors of the ‘do-it-for-me’ market. Exceed Home offers Painting, Window Furnishings (blinds, curtains and shutters) and Outdoor Solutions (instant hedging, fencing, outdoor fires and furniture).

Exceed was founded by husband-and-wife team David and Karen Dovey in Wellington over 20 years ago. Theirs is a franchising family: son Matt is a franchisee with The Coffee Guy in Tauranga, and featured on the cover of a recent issue of Franchise New Zealand as the youngest franchisee in New Zealand. But franchising isn’t their whole life – they also find time to operate a two-car racing team sponsored by Yale/Armstrong, one of the major suppliers to Exceed Maintenance. Knowing of my interest in motor sport, they invited me to Hampton Downs for a test day so I made sure the next issue of the magazine was safely at the printers and took a mental health day (something most business owners don’t do often enough - you can read about combining business and lifestyle here).

It’s a clear, sunny yet crisp Waikato morning when I strap myself into the 6-cylinder Yale/Armstrong Commodore beside its regular driver, 18 year-old Matt Dovey. As we leave the pit garage I’m distracted by the sight of Bruce McLaren’s old Can-Am car being wheeled out straight in front of us for its first shake-down run after a painstaking restoration. No time for that now though, as we accelerate out on to the circuit. The tyres are cold and so is the track, so Matt weaves the car from side-to-side, warming the tyres and testing the brakes. I’ve walked the circuit before and watched many races here but I’m surprised at just how familiar it all seems – testament to how close the spectators can get to the action at this friendly circuit.

As the car gets up to temperature so Matt speeds up, becoming noticeably smoother like all the best drivers and taking seconds off his lap times in the process. He’s two years younger than my own son but already an experienced racer and I’m grinning broadly inside my helmet. We do lap after lap and I find out why the cars always seem to brake so early for Turn One – it’s not just the fast downhill curve but the tightening right at the end of it that requires you to get the entry just right. The circuit features some challenging crests and gradients, none more so than the frankly steep downhill left-hander behind the pits. Our friend Avalon Biddle races 600cc motorbikes here – in the wet. She is a very brave young lady!

Sadly, there are others waiting so Matt returns to the pits for his next passenger. A corporate day requires a lot of planning and organisation to get the maximum number of people through and as we drive into the pits the ever-efficient Karen has the next guest ready and waiting. To my delight, it’s not long before David Dovey is warming up the V8 Falcon (the Yale/Armstrong team has a foot in both the Ford and Holden camps) and I’m first out again. This is a much more raw experience – the car is a fully-fledged racer and was second overall (and first in class) in the recent New Zealand Championship Endurance Series. The overall winner was the Fastway-sponsored Porsche GT3, so it was a good outcome for franchising.

David tells me the car has ‘only’ 400bhp/300 kW and work is underway to increase that to 500bhp as well as losing some weight (off the car, that is). It’s faster but louder and rougher and coarser as well. Even once it warms up it’s still something of a beast, but David is well in control. Sitting in the passenger seat I can’t see anything in the mirrors so although I can appreciate David’s skill as he slips past slower cars, when a Porsche appears alongside us it’s quite a surprise - what it’s like under racing conditions I can only imagine. My favourite sequence is the right/left at the end of the back straight, where the sudden change of direction at a crest must be a real challenge to get right – all too easy to lose momentum before the long straight that follows.

All too soon, David returns to the pit lane and my time in the Yale/Armstrong cars is over. It’s not the end of the excitement, though, as the McLaren M8A in the next door garage is fired up and this historic car, which was driven in period by Denny Hulme and Chris Amon as well as Bruce McLaren himself, takes to the track. Franchise New Zealand actually sponsored one tiny part of the restoration (one of the injection trumpets that suck air into the massive engine) so I join the TVOne cameraman on the start/finish gantry to watch: today is the first time it has moved under its own power for 42 years, and I’m privileged to be here to see it. See the TVOne story here.

So... thanks to the Yale/Armstrong team for a great morning; to Matt and David for chauffeuring me round the circuit, to Karen for her organisation, to Anita and Stephanie for the photographs and to all the Franchise New Zealand team for enabling me to go. My father was once driven by three-times world champion Jackie Stewart, my brother by three-times world champion Jack Brabham, but I’ve been driven by NZ’s franchising father-and-son team – and it was great. Now, back to the office with a smile on my face.