Welcome to AusNZ Simracing......

Hi Raceroomers,

This is a little article I've chucked together just for interests sake, Many of you may have been introduced to AusNZ or Raceroom by the means of our Tuesday Thunder event.....Lets take a little look at our mainstay event....

We start off where AusNZ began, or at least where the initial roots of the group began - Tuesday Thunder - for those of you who dont know this event was actually around before AusNZ was a thing. Tuesday Thunder was born in a previous Australian/New Zealand Raceroom Community - that contained amoungst others current AusNZ members (and I guess you could say founding members of a Southern hemisphere Raceroom community) Paul Darke and myself - Chris Mackenzie.

To be fair, my mind is a little fuzzy (call it old age) But the whole premise of the event came out of a few guys, maybe 4-6 of us just bashing around in Raceroom on (more than likely) a Sunday evening??? We set up a server with a few races using the then less content than we are currently blessed with and off we went.....just having a bit of fun and nothing serious...the odd nudge here and bump there. On the odd occasion someone would find the gravel trap (like we all do at some stage in our Raceroom careers) and in one such situation - a "safetycar" was called for - after some debate (or banter) we did in fact all slow and wait for the stranded racer to catch up. And From that moment we had the makings of Tuesday Thunder! and the first real attempt at a "down-under Raceroom" community was taking shape.

So, with the seed planted, and a group hastily chucked together we needed something to bring like minded guys together, we looked around to see what other "hot titles" were being played and when so we could pick a night that wasnt taken up by something else - and of all the days that were free at the time it was a "Tuesday" and so it was Tuesday was to be our night....and not to blow my own trumpet, but it may have been me that first coined the "Tuesday Thunder" moniker.

Cutting the story short a touch (theres some stuff that doesnt need to be portrayed in this story - even if it IS part of the story!) That group was launched and started to grow, it went through a couple of name and personel changes before AusNZ Simracing was born.

The event itself also went through a few changes - from the initial 'turn up n race', to a 'racer X - select what we do next' format. This is where our more current 'Newbie selects the next combo' idea was born. The exact first incarnations of race format is lost on me, but I believe is was just a multi-race get together with the server being reset for different combo's on the night.

Eventually, Tuesday Thunder would evolve into the more structured format that we see today - a Fun race with a safetycar plonked in the midddle of it all to allow those who had have mis-haps (or the slow buggers!) to catch up. Later a second 10 minute reverse grid dash would be added for a bit of added chaos (to be fair I think I was out of Simracing around a few of these transitions)

* I have since been advised that the 10 minute addition to Tuesday Thunder, was in fact a "Blunder" by admin when they forgot to clear the default 2nd race in the server setup! The quickfire race was more fun than could be imagined - so it Stuck and is still part of the format today!

Tuesday Thunder has had a fair share of ups n downs, its had some huge fields and some low points competitor wise and a stage where we didnt see any newbies - this is the point where the "Wheel of Doom" was brought in. Current racers would submit suggestions and they would be added to the wheel, this would be spun at the end of every nights racing to decide the following weeks combo. Unfortunately this idea while having some absolute gems of combo's was also subjected to a "who can make up the most rediculous combo" phase as well. Something that probably didnt help with the growth of AusNZ moving forward.

Tuesday Thunder also managed to get a (not-so) World Famous reputation (largely coined by AusNZ itself) due to Youtube streamer DDF Racer giving it some exposure around the world! While DDF has had to step aside a little in recent times due to family commitments (I'm not sure what his Mrs does on a Tuesday night to be honest!) Tuesday Thunder still gets the odd public airing due to other racers who stream their content.

And now.... as we move into 2026 Tuesday Thunder is beginning to find itself again, partly due to the recent upsurge in Racerooms popularity, and partly due to AusNZ's valuable members spreading the word about or Community and our events. We currently have a format that seems to fit well, we've been blessed with a few new racers - giving us that uncomfortable "on the spot" moment for one Newbie at nights end. There's a heap of combo's to be discovered (and a whole lot that could possibly be denied as well) making Tuesday Thunder a uniquely different event every week.

Oh - and lets not forget to mention the Banter, its been part of the Aussie/Kiwi thing right from the events very incarnation, and it doesnt look like its about to stop.

So there ya have it - a little background on AusNZ's longest standing (almost iconic) weekly event. I hope you enjoyed this insight into TT and I'll finish off with a quick disclaimer - while this article is as accurate as I can recall, there may be a bit of info missing here and there.....but i will say "No Raceroomers"were harmed in the making of this article"

Hopefully in 2026 we continue to see AusNZ grow and take our beloved TT to new heights.
Chris

* amended 5/01/26 - Thanks to AusNZ stalwart John Marsalis for the insight on how the 10 minute sprint came around.