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Friends Deegan Thompson and Lachlan Stanbra have a lot in common – they’re both 15, both live at Snells Beach and are both in Year 11 at Mahurangi College. What makes them stand out from the crowd, however, is that they are also both red-hot racing drivers with recent big wins and promising futures ahead of them.
Speedway specialist Thompson won the junior feature race last month at the first Western Springs meeting since floods damaged the circuit last year, while kart racer Stanbra took out the junior club points title for 2023 at KartSport Auckland.
Both say they are ready to move on to the next stage of their motorsport journeys, with Thompson set to switch to circuit racing and Stanbra moving into senior karts this year.
Thompson’s Western Springs win last month was the culmination of a speedway career that started when he was just eight years old and has seen him placed third in the NZ junior title twice. According to dad Matt, he picked a great night to take the feature race flag.
“The crowd was great, they were all up at the fences. They all knew it was a big race – there are normally 12 meetings, but this year we’ve got just two as they’ve still got flood damage,” he said.
“We’ve tried for eight years to win this race and it came down to the second-to-last weekend.”
Thompson’s last junior race in his current car at Western Springs will be on March 16 – after that, he’ll be starting circuit racing in dad’s old Toyota Corolla at tracks such as Hampton Downs and Taupo.
Racing is in Thompson’s blood – Matt was a speedway and circuit racer before him, and they buy, build and maintain the cars together, with the help of sponsors ECM, Good Thunder, Warkworth Motorcycles and Matt’s precision engineering business, MachTech.
He even has a race car simulator at home to practice on when he’s not racing for real.
“I love racing, it’s good fun,” Deegan said. “My dream is to end up driving V8 Supercars.”
That’s another thing he shares with Stanbra, who is already making his presence felt among the adults in 125cc senior karts. At his first Auckland club meet last month, Stanbra finished first in three out of five heats and came second overall in his class.
Last year, he achieved nine race wins, 22 podium placings and 10 fastest laps – impressive by anyone’s standards, but even more so when you consider that he only took up the sport two years ago.
Because he enjoyed indoor karting, Stanbra’s grandfather and parents surprised him by buying him a proper racing kart for his 13th birthday in 2021. He joined KartSport Auckland, off Rosebank Road, but a covid lockdown meant he wasn’t able to start racing until 2022.
However, he quickly rose through the ranks to get his Tier 1 licence rating, meaning he could enter any sprint event, including the three-day National Sprint Championships in Blenheim at the end of this month.
Stanbra said that far from being intimidating, racing against adults was in some ways easier than going head-to-head with several dozen adolescent boys.
“Racing seniors is a little bit different because they’re older people, and a bit more careful when they’re passing,” he said.
Stanbra’s grandparents – known as Bopbop and Gangie – remain his most loyal sponsors, having set up his race team, Wahaii Racing, together with Allen’s Autos, Stoney Creek clothing, McMahon Builders and Inkwise printers, where dad Karl works.
