Velocity News is proud to congratulate co-founder Simon Chapman who was announced as MotorSport New Zealand’s Journalist of the Year.
Chapman was awarded the prize in last night’s award ceremony in Christchurch.
His feature piece on Kiwi IndyCar engineer Blair Julian, who has helped forge the success of Scott Dixon in the US, was Chapman’s winning entry.
“Simon’s winning entry for his story profiling Blair Julian successfully captures the beginnings and progression over the last couple of decades of the somewhat radical path Julian took to become a big part of Dixon’s mighty and enduring presence in IndyCar’s main game,” MotorSport New Zealand said.
“Simon has crafted an engaging story that forms part of a series of New Zealanders and their motorsport journeys.
“He has succeeded in bringing the largely unknown success story to the forefront of motorsport’s audience.”
Velocity News, New Zealand’s largest independent online motor racing news outlet, was founded by Chapman and good friend Matthew Hansen in 2014.
Together, and with the support of PR guru Richard Gee, they built a news outlet centred around Kiwi racing drivers accomplishing great things domestically and on the world stage.
Their well-thought opinion pieces, gripping feature stories and passion for delivering Kiwis with New Zealand and International motorsport news were especially praiseworthy.
The two are also fantastic photographers.
New Zealand drivers often fly under the radar of mainstream media, despite our country producing some of the world’s most successful achievers.
Thanks to the foundations set by Chapman and Hansen, Velocity News continues to keep New Zealanders informed on the latest news from their favourite Kiwi drivers and the next crop of up-and-coming talent.
Chapman took on writing for Velocity full-time in 2018, creating a standout online news platform that continues to blossom.
He then moved across the ditch to take up the opportunity of writing for major Australian outlet Speedcafe.com.
Hansen became a motoring journalist with NZME after starting up Velocity.
After a four-and-a-half-year gig with NZME, Hansen returned to contribute to Velocity last year.
He splits his time with New Zealand Autocar Magazine – Velocity’s big brother – as the online news editor.