One lap Dick Johnson

The Nis­san Mobil 500 may be a dis­tant mem­o­ry, but it still has made its mark on the city — check out the way that Jer­vois Quay feels more like a chute designed for cars to hur­tle along at high speed than a pleas­ant har­bour­side city street.

But those wish­ing the relive the glo­ry days can do so over at YouTube, where petrol­heads have uploaded a selec­tion of choice clips. My favourite is “One lap Dick John­son” from 1990. While this would be a per­fect­ly good name for a porno, it’s actu­al­ly a dash­board cam of dri­ver Dick doing a lap of the cir­cuit.

It ends up being a real­ly good snap­shot of Welling­ton’s water­front envi­ron­ment before the big regen­er­a­tion of the ’90s — no Te Papa, the Muse­um Hotel is still down by the water, Wai­t­an­gi Park is full of ware­hous­es, no Merid­i­an build­ing, no Kumu­to­to stream revival, no City to Sea bridge, and no love­ly pleas­ant har­bour­side walk.

Vrrm vrrrrrm: