Grant Brennan Race Team

See what the Aussie V8s are missing out on at Taupo this year
Great to see the car from this view
Great footage John DeVeth

GTRNZ GT1 & GT2 Race 2 Taupo 29th Mar 2026 Good day at Taupo with all the GTRNZ people. Great club to belong to

Write up on GTRNZ FB Page

GT1 Class! 🏆
Battle of the big wings!
Its great to see a revival of the GT1 Class and the big bangers coming out to impress the crowds!
This season saw plenty of excitement and action in GT1. With Cameron Jones Racing Leading the charge of the homebuilt specials against some of the fastest factory race cars in the world.
🥇Nobody could match John De Veth Racing however. John dominated Taking 4 round victories across the season in his Crawford DP. a very well deserved class win for John!!
🥈Im sure John will remind Glenn at every chance he can over the next 12 months where he finished this season. Glenn fought hard in his Mclaren 650s GTX but ultimately came up short. Not without some excellent battles all season however. SBT Motorsport
🥉Its great to have the absolutely impressively engineered Tranzam Corvette of Brennan Motorsport back out on track with us, Grant had alot of work ahead of him coming into this season to adapt his Tranzam to doing Standing starts Lorraine and Grant have worked very hard all season and to grab third spot overall in GT1 will be great reward for all their hard work im sure
Congratulations to you all!

GT1 - Race 2 Round 5 Taupo International Motorsport Park
as promised -
Hope you enjoy

Brennan GT1 Corvette VS McLaren & Prototype GT1 Race 2 Rd 5 - Brennan Corvette

Run down on the weekend
Qualifying
Qualified 4th with delaminating tyres and slippery conditions with a very green track. 1.30.5 was my best time so way off the pace
Race 1
Car very difficult to drive with severe understeer with snap oversteer.
But managed a 3rd place. Lap time 1.29.347
Huge overnight changes to try and combat the track conditions
Changed setting on shocks all round - changed front and rear tyres to best 2nd hand ones we had. Camber change on the front and aggressive toe settings and front and rear bar changes.
If this doesnt fix our grip will change the front springs for Race 2 .then did a full spanner check - car all good except for 1 bolt in the watts linkage
Race 2 heres hoping with the changes we can use the extra hp we found
But once again a poor start - the Mclaren and the protype pass me before we got to T1 but by T1 was back on them - passed the protype and right on the back of the McLaren
Now able to stay with the mclaren and was holding out the prototype without having to be defensive. Car not perfect but have confidence in car and can now drive it. Tried to put a pass on mclaren several times but not brave enough and still not enough grip in the rear to come off corners strong.
Was some great close racing Prototype did pass me under brakes in a dear devil move across the ripple strips with a few laps remaining so got 3rd for race 2 and confident the changes were in the tight direction with more to do for R3. Managed Fastest Lap of the race at 1.27.691 - so progress
Race 3
Made more changes to the bars and to the tune so will have more go on the straights to make car more competitive
Slow start from too much wheel spin even though when wheels eventually hook up we have gained all that was lost down into T1
The car has more bottom end
Try several moves on the mclaren and finally get past
Held up a little behind the 4WD subaru but got past him up the short straight and now chasing the crawford and closing up the gap.
Car is not 100% but certainly making more power and cockpit changes to the bars and steering input it starts to become a little better and the gap is now closing - changing my driving lines to obtain better grip and different techniques to get the car to rotate - sometimes using kerbing to help the car rotate
at 5 lap mark a car spins and is parked across the end of back straight before chicanes. Race is red flagged and the race called so 2nd place.
Would have been a good last few laps and was really looking forward to the competition - I got another fastest lap of the race with a 1.27.395 on very old tyres with some having over 4 meetings on them and coming away from the race meeting with no damage to the car
All in all a good end to the season and additional pace found that we can now improve on for next year with some major changes planned. So summing up the gremlins we have experienced throughout this year and last are all gone - car responds positively to small changes, engine certainly has more power throughout the entire rev range. Engine now with 4 seasons under its belt with only 2 changes of valve springs shows we have a superb engine reliability - clutch issues are resolved leaving really only one thing to address as an issue - getting off the line which in the overall scheme of things is going to be pretty easy to fix. So both Lorraine and I think we did close to our best for the year. Will put up some incar footage later today. thanks again to all the followers - old and lots of new. If there is any content you would like us to share leave a comment or if you have anything to offer from your observations, photos, videos, any suggestions to help us improve please add to the coments or send thru via message Cheer Grant and Lorraine

Bit of a wait for qualifying - last one for the morning
Track is damp but not raining at present so can't make a decision on wets or drys till bit closer

Bit of refining work before last round for the season at Taupo this weekend after Hampton Downs so should have better starts

More work done on the elelctric power steer unit with refined GPS speed and pressure maps to get the optimum steering

This track would have to be my most favourite of the North Island tracks.

Being Taupo its likely to be cold and damp but fingers crossed it wont be damp but if so we have the Wets ready.

Been through and performed the spanner check - verified the wheel alignment and checked all the filters. All looking good.

some nice shots of GT1/GT2 cars at the weekend thanks to Gare Photography

Thanks to everyone for the personal messages , comments and phone calls and of course all those who drop in and see us over the weekend of racing.
We get lots of questions about the car so thought we would take the opportunity to put down the most popular questions asked
I will do my best to answer these for you

Questions
#1 - How many revs is it doing and whats its top speed
#2 -Why does it sound so different to everyone elses
#3 - What type of engine is it
#4 - What type of gearbox and how many speeds and type of clutch
#5 - how much does it weigh
#6 - Is it a real Corvette
#7 - How old is the car
#8 - Why does it smell different when its running
#9 - How many people work on the car
#10 - Who is the driver
#11 - Who is Brennan Motorsport & Engineering

Answers:
#1 - at this weekends event it pulled 10,366 rpm trying to catch up to the McLaren in R2 after a poor start and its top speed on the front straight was 267.8 kph but the car has done 327kph and pulled 11500rpm with 2 flat tyres at land speed event

#2 - the sound differs from the others as it has a stainless exhaust - a unique camshaft and rocker design - and of course the high rev range of which the engine produces its power in

#3 - Engine is a Brennan Motorsport Block and heads based loosley on Chevrolet - compacted graphite steel block - alloy heads - Individual throttle body high pressure Gantry Injection - Steel crankshaft - Brennan Billet pistons - Carrilo conrods made to our spec - a unique journal size - camshaft spacing and deck height - this allows the head placement to be very low in the vehicle. The engine is also completely segregated and runs as 8 individual engines within the 1 housing - only the crankshaft is common

#4 - Gearbox is Brennan Build 5 Speed Sequential that we continued over from the original 5 speed gearbox that was developed by Hewland for MVE USA- Hewland UK supplied all the drawings and what they had learnt for us to continue to develop and we build new cases and internal components required - low ground clearance - its air operated paddle shift (single steering wheel paddle with up and down activation )

Clutch is 5 1/2" carbon 4 plate

#5 - its weight with driver and fuel is 1150kg

#6 - No its not a real Corvette - its a space framed chassis build by Brennan Motorsport - only Corvette original parts on the car are the wing mirrors and the taillights. Body shell was made from a Deerhaag body that was completely redimensioned (as was along way off from left to right and short on the left hand side ) - moulds taken and carbon/kevlar body produced and later aero kit designed and added

#7 - Cars was build in 2005 and of course developed over time and is a space framed design from Chrome Moly - first event got 2 x 2nds and a 1st at Taupo - it has run in NZ Super Sedans (now GTRNZ) and won ever year whilst in Super Sedans then several years as GTRNZ and 2nd in 1st year of Super V8s and 1st in the open Extreme Super V8s in there last year - now running in GT1 GTRNZ - currently sitting in 3rd place with 1 round to go behind the Crawford Prototype and McLaren
Has had 2 engines - 1st engine was SB2 chev that was sold into another race team and still running and our current style of engine was fitted 2010 - engine in the car now has done 3 seasons plus 4 rounds - so after last round making it 4 seasons untouched with the exception of valve springs

#8 - the car runs on Ethanol fuel - originally Gull - but this suffered impurity issues and clogging now use a Canadian ethanol which gives us better results

#9 -2 x People work on the car - myself and my wife Lorraine who also runs and looks after the Brennan Motorsport business and an VW /Audi business
Car is only worked on after hours - weekends - with sometimes the week before meeting preparations
Our crew currently is Myself - Lorraine - and 2 of our Grandchildren - Justise (25) Lizzy (7) - each one has their jobs and as they have grown up in the sport it is just part of daily life so they find it very normal

#10 - the driver is myself Grant Brennan - started my racing career when i was 14 - now 66 - had my first road race car at the age of 10 (actually on the road, very differnt times then😀).
Built many cars from Minis - Cortinas - MK1 Escorts - V8 Commodores - V8 Mazda RX7 - Camaro's - Corvette's
Raced in USA - Australia- Thailand - NZ
have set many lap records and fastest times - many of them still stand and now cant be broken as sadly those tracks dont exsist anymore

Love to keep fit by Running - cycling - Gym - Mhay thai - am a granddad and also a great granddad

#11- Left school at 14 my favourite subjects were science, chemistry, and maths .and of course metal working
Had a passion for automotive that came naturally - used to fit large engines into cars from V8s and 6 cylinders into anything that was around at the time where more power was needed - started an apprenticeship in a Ford dealership - worked at General Motors Trentham Manufacturing - went to Australia and worked for a very large Automotive company who had a race division - at that time was very elite but not flash in todays standards - went to America as many do . made lots of friends and contacts - came back to NZ and started my own race company which was unheard of in those days - imported the first 5 axis CNC machine into Australiasia - 2nd company in the world to CNC cylinder heads - 2nd company in the world to use Renshaw scanning - continued to grow the business with CNC machines and motorsport technologies
We do everything in house - nothing is farmed out with the exception of foundary work which we have specialised industrial foundary manufactureres produce products for us.
We continue to develop race products from electronic driver aids to hard core engine components

We have enjoyed the sport whilst it has had its ups and downs as its a tough industry to be in and people arent always kind. We have always appreciated the support and there are many in the industry not only in NZ but overseas that have given us such suppport that has given us the strength and allowed us to achieve our goals as a racing family

We have met some amazing people and cetainly have made some life long friends

The industry is not what many think it is - glamour and easy - it takes hard work - dedication - and persistance - certainly endurance that many will never appreciate unless they are involved.
Its difficult to explain unless you have been apart of this sport
Lorraine and I treat every event as a learning curve and if we win a round of course that makes us happy but if we dont it doenst destroy us as theres so much more to it as someone replied to a post recently - ITS CHARACTER BUILDING

Thanks again from the Brennan Motorsport Team - Grant and Lorraine