![\"Roland](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026-Supercars-Testing-1-SMP-Z81_2145.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPremiAir Racing team principal Roland Dane.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPremiAir Racing team principal Roland Dane.<\/p>\n
Dane will lend his expertise across the ditch, joining the GT New Zealand Championship.<\/p>\n
The championship is a multi-class category for GT4 cars and contemporary Porsche Cup cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI very much enjoy GT and have been a big advocate of the GT4 category in particular,\u201d said Dane.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I relish the opportunity to contribute to the NZ scene and help Josie (Spillane) to develop the series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in the sport as both a driver and as an entrant for over 50 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to think that I\u2019ve developed a perspective that will help to guide everyone and work with the objective of having a safe and competitive season for one and all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dane is one of three new appointments ahead of the 2026\/27 NextGen New Zealand Championships season.<\/p>\n
Phil Shaw has been appointed GT New Zealand Championship category manager. He joins the fold from Supercars where he served as general manager of events for 14 years.<\/p>\n
Nathan Pilcher joins as Porsche Endurance Trophy coordinator for the GT New Zealand Championship.<\/p>\n
The championship changed hands in the off-season, with NextGen New Zealand Championships promoter Tony Quinn taking the reins from Grant Smith.<\/p>\n
NextGen New Zealand Championships and GT New Zealand Championship chief executive Josie Spillane hailed the appointments ahead of the 2026\/27 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re incredibly excited about the team we\u2019ve put together for our first season with Summerset GT New Zealand, and having Phil, Roland and Nathan come on board is a loud and proud statement of what we\u2019re trying to achieve with the championship,\u201d said Spillane.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey each bring something different, including their personalities, but between them there is an incredible amount of knowledge, professionalism and experience across so many areas of the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to bring that together within GT New Zealand and the Repco NextGen NZ Championship is something we\u2019re really thrilled about, and I know they\u2019ll each add a huge amount to helping us raise the bar even higher for New Zealand Motorsport.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2026\/27 GT New Zealand Championship begins at Taupo on November 13-15. The season begins in the new year at Teretonga on January 22-24.<\/p>\n
The season hits halfway at Highlands on January 29-31 as part of the New Zealand Grand Prix undercard.<\/p>\n
The penultimate round will be held at Hampton Downs on February 26-28 while the date for the Taupo finale is still to be confirmed as part of the Supercars meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PremiAir Racing team principal Roland Dane. Dane will lend his expertise across the ditch, joining the GT New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,62399,216,213],"class_list":["post-601794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-roland-dane","tag-slot3","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}