KEY POINTS:
Kiwi John McIntyre showed winning the 2006-2007 New Zealand V8s title was no fluke, when he dominated Pukekohe Raceway over the weekend.
McIntyre finished with two wins and a fourth place - coming from the rear of the field in a reverse-grid wet third race - to head
into the next round as the points leader.
"This result today is the culmination of a whole off-season's work," said McIntyre. "The preparation by the team, fine-tuning our package in qualifying and racing, has made all the difference and it's great to be able to qualify at the front of the field."
This season's title chase started over the weekend, with the Fujitsu 200 being contested by a field of 33 V8s - 20 Fords and 12 Holdens.
McIntyre, competing in last year's completely rebuilt car, contested the three V8 Supercar-style qualifying sessions and took pole position for the opening of the V8s championship.
McIntyre dominated the first race on Saturday with a wire-to-wire win ahead of Andy Booth and Angus Fogg. The song remained the same in race two after McIntyre came from third on the grid to pass Booth and take the lead, until an accident ending in Julia Huzziff's Holden becoming tangled with Andrew Anderson's Holden, halted the race. McIntyre pulled away from the rest of the field at the restart for his second win of the weekend.
Race three was held in the rain and started with the entire grid reversed, and as three-time former champion Mark Pedersen found out, three-into-one won't go into turn one, especially in the wet, and he was spun around, incurring rear damage and retired.
"There was absolutely no grip coming up over the hill," said round third-place finisher Andy Fogg. "It was just a sheet of water and you just had to hold your breath and hang on until the tyres found some grip again."
"The worst thing for me," said McIntyre "Was the lack of visibility, it was just a sheet of white and you didn't know which side of the track to go or what was out there."
Adam Brook held on to win race three, with McIntyre, Fogg and Booth climbing through the field to finish fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.
Paul Radisich started the weekend well but was undone when his windscreen wiper broke in the wet third race, and he was unable to see and finished well down the field.
After dominating qualifying to claim pole position, Porsche GT3 driver Craig Baird made short work of the field over the weekend and went on to dominate with three wins from three starts. Matt Halliday overcame gearbox problems in the first race to record a fourth and second place in subsequent races. The two youngsters in the field, 19-year-old Ant Pedersen and 17-year-old Jono Lester, were second and third in the two dry races, but struggled in the wet. Baird and Halliday showed how experience helps by leading the rest of the field by the length of the back straight.
Andy Knight's experience showed as he put daylight between himself and the rest of the field in the Toyota Racing Series with three wins. Nic Jordan had three seconds.
Keeley Pudney scored two wins and a sixth in the Mini Challenge and Brett Collins had three seconds. Richard Moore, 15, impressed in the rain-affected third race by edging out Collins to snatch a win.
After the round one of NZV8s, McIntyre has 204 points; Booth, 179; Fogg, 163; Kane Scott, 148; Dean Perkins, 132.
