Last week, there was a peculiar spectacle at New Zealand's Auckland airport: a race between the A1 Grand Prix Black Beauty (driven by Jonny Reid) and an Air New Zealand Boeing 777 (piloted by Captain Dave Morgan).
"It was just fantastic, a mind blowing experience," an exhilarated Reid said after the unusual match-up of the aircraft's brawn versus the car's beauty.
Reid said he was "quite relaxed, enjoying the scenery" as Black Beauty reached 290km/h on the tarmac.
Predictably, environmentalists weren't amused:
Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the race seemed to be an "unnecessary waste" and questioned how the footage would boost tourism. "How exactly is that going to improve our image as the most sustainable nation in the world? What do we want to be known for internationally?"
Oh, and here are the answers to the two obvious questions: The plane won the first round when it was given a headstart of about 8 seconds, and the car won in the second round when the plane's headstart was cut in half. And no, they didn't close the airport down, they just squeezed the race in between take-offs and landings.
Link - Thanks Andrea-Ja McCallum!
Here's the YouTube clip:
So someone wasted a few thousand gallons of fuel on a publicity stunt, big deal.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fBfNzxILKMk