KEY POINTS:
Hamilton driver Kayne Scott snared pole and duly won the opening race of the New Zealand V8 championship round in Timaru yesterday.
Having set the fastest time of 1m 06.453s during qualifying in his Ford, Scott went on to extend his narrow championship lead over defending champion John McIntyre.
With drizzling rain threatening at the Levels Raceway circuit, the 24 entrants completed an incident-free 12-lap race. Scott led from start to finish for his third race win of the season, heading off Angus Fogg, McIntyre, Tim Edgell and Craig Baird. Best of the Holden drivers in sixth place was Andy Booth.
Fogg set a new lap record, his time of 1m 06.573s shaving six-hundreds of a second off the record Scott has held since January 2005.
"Angus got close to us, closing the gap on us several times," Scott said. "This track uses up tyres - it's neat to drive but it's difficult to pass here. You're really relying on someone making a mistake, especially when we're so close at the front of the field."
McIntyre said his car seemed to get faster towards the end of the race.
"We've come from nowhere yesterday; we've just been off the pace. We had Craig [Baird] on our tail in some parts of the circuit, then we were able to start catching Angus.
"But, as the others say, it's hard to pass here. I got really close to Angus but if you can't get enough advantage to pass, it's not worth the risk of possibly tapping Angus and being penalised."
The remaining two races will be contested today - a 16-lapper in the morning and the reverse grid 20-lapper in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, British racer William Buller celebrated his first single-seater win after a hard fought Race One victory in the Toyota Racing Series, also at Timaru.
Buller, 16, lined up on the front row of the grid with team-mate and fellow British racer Will Stevens, who had pole. Buller got the better start and swept into the lead. Behind him, series leader Mitch Cunningham forced his way through from a fourth place start to emerge on to the back straight second overall, pushing pole man Stevens to third.
Cunningham pushed Buller hard throughout the race and, on lap nine, almost took the lead when the young Briton had a gearshift problem. Buller was able to recover and won with a lead of half a second.
When Buller had a gearshift problem late in the race, Cunningham attacked through the turn 1-3 complex and drew alongside Buller's Rockingham-backed car but Buller was able to retain his lead.
Hamilton-based racer Michael Burdett, who finished sixth, set a new category and Tier One race lap record for the track.
His lap time of 58.890s at an average speed of 144.437km/h topped the time of 59.031s set by Earl Bamber in March 2008.
The opening Porsche GT3 race saw a home town victory for Timaru's Triple X Motorsport engineer Peter Sprague, with driver David Reynolds taking a comfortable victory in the afternoon 12-lap race.
It was a lights to flag victory by Melbourne's Reynolds in the Placemakers Hampsta Porsche 997, beating home the second Triple X Porsche of Queensland-based Craig Baird (Barrons RV Taupo ZM), with third going to Triple X recruit Daniel Gaunt (Beef and Lamb-Radio Sport- Trinity Media Group Porsche 997).
Facing dreary conditions, Reynolds said his first victory of the season wasn't hampered by the light rain that began to fall during the early stages of the race.
"Peter Sprague and I have been working closer together to get the performance of the car fine tuned and that's what won me the race. Since the first lap of practise, I knew my car was good and my mindset was very good for the weekend - I was on it straight away."
- AGENCIES
