On the 26th April 2012 in the foyer of the West Plaza Hotel in Wellington, two teams battled it out to set a world record for the fastest time to wrap a Suzuki vehicle in vinyl. The day prior the team from New Zealand sponsored by the New Zealand Sign and Display Association along with the team from Australia, sponsored by One Way Vision and the Australian Sign and Graphics Association assembled in Wellington to preview the graphics layout, establish their work area, and meet the opposition.
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Each team was made up of three people. The New Zealand team comprised three members from GAS Graphic Application Specialists of Auckland, Scott Dalziell, Kiri Marshall and Geoff Budd, and the Australian team were all from Bear Signs in Sydney, Brett East, John Lopez and Jordan Pike-Johnson.
Two identical Swift sport vehicles were supplied by Suzuki for this event. The competition was judged by David Hay from the ASGA and Warren Burrows from the NZSDA.
Judging was based on four categories, 1/ cutting 2/ alignment 3/ application 4/ finishing and for every fault found by the judges a 2 minute penalty was imposed on the teams finish time.
Both teams had 30 minutes to complete their cleaning preparation but no parts of the vehicles were to be removed until the competition began. The removal of parts for ease of application was optional once the event proper was underway as was the choice of application equipment.
At 5 pm on the dot the two teams began, both choosing different strategies and quite different techniques, with Australians jumping out to an early lead but as time progressed the Kiwis slowly but steadily caught up and pulled ahead to finish in a time of
3h 30m 30s followed closely behind by the Australian team in 3h 53m 47s.
After some particularly close scrutiny by the judges the Kiwi team incurred 66 minutes of penalties and the Aussies 122 minutes of penalties giving the Kiwis a new world record of 4h 36m 30s. Well done guys!
A large crowd was on hand in the hotel lobby to witness this inaugural event and virtually no one left until the two teams had finished.
Congratulations to both teams, but most people who were at this event will agree that the industry was the winner!
Both teams used materials supplied by Total Supply Ltd and Jenrite NZ Ltd which were printed on an HP latex printer by Concept Sign and Display Ltd in Wellington.
The NZSDA plan to continue with this trans Tasman Event possibly on a bi-ennial basis but more importantly take it global with challenges, supported by Suzuki throughout the world, to North America, Europe and Asia.
New Zealand Sign & Display Association
www.signs.org.nz
