By Gary Thomas
New Zealand, December 10, 2009…Chico, California sprint car driver Jonathan Allard is pleased to join forces with Hydraulink Fluid Connectors and Porter Hire in support of his annual New Zealand/Down Under trip for the 2009 and ’10 season.
Allard is very excited to be a part of the Kevin McGreal owned No. 0 sprinter once again in New Zealand and looks forward to representing Hydraulink and Porter Hire. “We are extremely happy to have great companies like Hydraulink and Porter Hire come on board as marketing partners with our team this season,” the 33-year-old veteran said. “This is the biggest sponsor I’ve been a part of and they have a huge racing background so it’s pretty awesome to be associated with them. We have a great team down here and had a lot of success last year and I’m definitely expecting the same this season.”
Tracing its beginnings back to 1945 Hydraulink has developed into a multi national hose and fittings company operating in Australia, Asia and the South Pacific basin. The prime activities of the company are the rapid repair of hose assemblies to a wide range of both mobile and static plant, in the field 24 hours a day 7 days a week, the supply of new hose assembles to original equipment manufacturers throughout all countries and direct on site sales from containers at large projects. The company undertakes this through a distribution network in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Any application where optimum performance from hydraulic systems and hoses is critical, Hydraulink are there, manufacturing and distributing hydraulic hoses, fittings, couplers, tube assemblies, adaptors and accessories.
Porter Hire is the largest hire company in the southern hemisphere and currently services specific customer requirements with over 1,950 hired units in operation nationwide. Over 20 years ago, Porter Hire was a pioneer in the heavy equipment rental market in New Zealand and today continues to offer both an extensive range of construction equipment, and an economical solution to an often expensive machinery demand. The Porter Hire fleet is continually expanded and upgraded with newer machinery, to ensure the latest technology, highest performance, and world class quality, are always available to meet the needs of the customer. Porter Hire is the home of some of the largest excavators, wheel loaders, dump trucks, rollers, bulldozers, graders, trucks, tippers, water carts and crushers in New Zealand.
Since beginning his sprint car career in 1994 Jonathan Allard has become one of the very best drivers in the sport over the last 5-10 years and continues to grow his resume season after season. In 2000 Allard finished runner-up in the California Sprint Car Civil War Series standings and in 2001 he was the Golden State Challenge Series Rookie of the Year, which saw him capture the Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial for his first ever series win. After spending time on the road for a couple of seasons he returned home to California in 2005 and joined forces with Williams Motorsports in April of that year.
Since becoming a part of the Morrie and Katie Williams owned team Allard’s career has taken off and has been highlighted by a pair of Golden State Challenge King of California championships, as well as two victories and a runner-up finish in a three-year span at the $25,000-to-win Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup at the Skagit Speedway in Washington.
The last two seasons have also seen him score finishes of third and fourth during the prestigious World of Outlaw sanctioned Gold Cup Race of Champions at the Silver Dollar Speedway in his hometown of Chico. In his career Allard has also picked-up victories at the Pacific Sprint Fall Nationals in Chico, the Chris Faria Memorial in Tulare, the Cotton Classic in Hanford and the Tribute to Gary Patterson in Calistoga among others. In 2007 he also led all 30-laps to capture a preliminary night main event victory at the Gold Cup Race of Champions.
Despite not getting quite as many wins as he would have liked this past year Allard had another strong season in 2009, which saw him finish runner-up in the Golden State Challenge Series point standings. Along the way Allard finished in the top-10 during all of the 21 series races and claimed his fourth career Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial title, tying him for the most wins in the event with California legend Brent Kaeding. It also marked his 19th career GSC victory, which places him fourth on the all-time series win list.
Allard also accomplished a long time goal this year by making the A-main at the Knoxville Nationals in Iowa for the first time in his career and scored a 15th place finish in the 40-lap finale. Other highlights from the ’09 season included a $20,000 triumph at the Springs Speedway in New Zealand during the month of January, as well as a preliminary night win at the Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup in June and a sixth place finish in his first ever visit to the I-30 Speedway in Little Rock, Arkansas for the Short Track Nationals. “We had a good year overall, but we expect a lot from ourselves so we’re really never satisfied,” said Allard. “We’re always trying to learn things and I think towards the end of the season we started to get things figured out so that should bode well for next year.”
For updates from Allard’s trip down under stay tuned to http://www.allardmotorsports.com