McElrea Racing | Andy McElrea

Andy McElrea
Formula Ford @New Zealand 1991
Andy McElrea
Trans Am 2nd @New Zealand 1995
Andy McElrea
Trans Am 1st @New Zealand 1996
Andy McElrea
Trans Am Team @New Zealand 1996

Andy McElrea

Founder & Team Principal

Andy is the Company Director and Manager of McElrea Holdings Group of companies. He is a qualified automotive engineer and accomplished race car driver in his own right with multiple racing titles to his name and has worked for race teams in NZ, England, Europe and America.

After completing his apprenticeship in New Zealand Andy moved into car sales working his way up to 'Sales Manager' at a local dealership in Christchurch.

In 1994 he moved to Auckland as the National Sales and Marketing Manager of NZ 'Autocar' magazine before moving to California where he worked for 6 years as the manager of a highly specialized division for a leading automotive tuning company Stillen.

Background

After moving to Australia in 2001 and establishing his own furniture importation business he co-founded PCR's Porsche Carrera Cup team with school friend Paul Cruickshank and worked as team manager until 2008.

McElrea Racing was founded in 2009 and has gone on to achieve success in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Championship, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge, Australian Mini Challenge, Bathurst 12 Hour and Porsche Carrera Cup Asia.

In 2010 MR started competing in GT3 Cup Challenge and in 2011 MR won it's first Carrera Cup 'Teams Championship' and was second in the Drivers' Championship with Jonny Reid. Since then MR has never finished outside the top three in the Drivers' Championship and has always been first or second in the Teams Championship. In 2015 MR expanded to run its first Australian GT campaign across multiple classes with a McLaren 650S, Ginetta G50Z and a Porsche GT3 Cup.

Andy's own racing career started in 1984 and he competed in England, America, New Zealand and Australia with successes including two NZ National Championships, 1991 Motorcraft Formula Ford Championship and 1996 NZ 'Trans Am' championship against the likes of Jim Richards and team-mate Peter Brock. Other titles include 1991 Peter Jackson International Formula Ford Championship, 1985, 1986, 1991 NZ South Island Formula Ford Championship, 1990 Nissan Mobil Formula Ford Championship and 1984 South Island Sports Car Championship. He is also one of a select few two-time recipients of New Zealand's most prestigious motorsport award, the Jim Clark Trophy.

Aside from his duties at MR Andy works on building the other companies within the McElrea Group and as a high-performance driving instructor at the Porsche Sport Driving School where he has been working since 2002.