State Highway 2 by Melling station in Lower Hutt is known to attract racers.

Two judges have given similar sentences to a pair of racers snapped at about 200kmh – except that one will keep his identity secret.

Police caught them both whizzing down State Highway 2 in Lower Hutt in performance cars in September.

Shane Kumar, 26, an IT programmer from Miramar, was found guilty on Monday of racing his Nissan Skyline after a day-long judge-alone trial before Judge Bruce Davidson.

He did not apply for name suppression.

The other driver, a 24-year-old from Lower Hutt, plead guilty in February – but he was granted permanent name suppression by Judge Chris Tuohy on a charge of lying to police.

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Unlike Kumar, the 24-year-old had a letter of support from Hutt South MP Trevor Mallard, saying he was "a young man with tremendous potential" whose years of study could be "negated by a conviction for lying to the police".

Judge Tuohy told the man: "You have suffered a lot because of the degree of publicity ..."

Both men were ordered to complete about 200 hours of community work and were disqualified from driving for 12 months.

Judge Davidson said Kumar was driving with a passenger when they met up in Wellington with other car enthusiasts, including the unnamed 24-year-old, before driving to Lower Hutt.

They drove to a car park outside Melling station, an area popular with racers because a set of nearby traffic lights on State Highway 2 could be used as signals.

Kumar said he drove up to the lights with no intention to race, but may have been overtaken at speed by the other driver.

A traffic officer, who had been monitoring the group's movements, waited about a kilometre south with a hand-held speed gun.

The officer told the court he saw their headlights coming at him side-by-side and he locked in one going 207kmh before they slowed as they saw him.

The accuracy of what happened after the officer stopped Kumar was strongly disputed by the defence.

Judge Davidson excluded Kumar's unsigned statement to the officer, which was deemed unfair because it had not been read back to him at the time. It read: "It was f...ing stupid. We just went for it. We were racing."

The judge decided that "each was trying to go faster than the other", and so Kumar was guilty.

Both men had previously faced a driving offence.