'Best racing seat in the world' made in Lower Hutt

NATALIE SLADE/Dominion Post

VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: David Black's career as a rally driver has allowed him to "connect with the drivers''.

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When a rally car driver thanks you personally for his survival in a crash that turned a steel rollcage into spaghetti, you know you are doing something right.

"That makes you feel good," says David Black, chief executive of Lower Hutt racing car seat maker Racetech. The crash, at an Australian rally last December, demonstrated the dangerous end of the market Racetech works in, but Mr Black says the industry focus is too often on cost and weight so race cars can go faster for less.

As a former rally champion, Mr Black knows how to connect with the drivers, and that is a major advantage in a fiercely competitive international circuit.

Racetech has been going since 1992, and was bought by Mr Black in 1998. It builds a range of seats for racing cars in its Petone workshop, finishing everything in-house except the embroidery. Retailing for between $550 and $10,000, the seats are starting to gain a reputation around the world, especially in Racetech's key markets of Australia and the United States.

Nineteen of the 32 starters in Australia's Bathurst V8 race this year were fitted with Racetech seats, and Mr Black says trips to trade shows in Indianapolis, Orlando and Germany over the past six weeks prompted inquiries that could double their output.

With the US market down by 50 per cent in the recession, nailing an order to supply German car maker Mercedes with 50 seats at 5000 each is a welcome win.

Getting its first big break through a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise-funded trade show in 2001, Racetech was picked to supply the seats for the Dodge Viper. "We earned a lot of respect for what we did in that car."

The resulting relationship with Chrysler has earned the company contacts and kudos in what Mr Black says is a relatively conservative market. Reluctant to change fast, the tragic reality is that it sometimes takes a death on the track to pressure race teams into safety improvements.

The first company in the world to produce seats under stringent new motor racing safety standards, Mr Black says Racetech pushes safety first and benefits from being small enough to adapt its product to stay on the front line of racing safety technology.

"We are arguably producing the best racing seat in the world."

- © Fairfax NZ News