Motorsport: Evans closes out season with win

Simon Evans took the round honours at Hampton Downs this weekend. Photo / Supplied

The BNT NZ Touring Car Championship has wrapped up its season with a final day of racing at a very wet Hampton Downs today.

Race two of the weekend was won by Jason Bargwanna followed by Simon Evans and Lance Hughes. Class two of the championship was won by Nick Farrier who claimed his first win of the season, followed by Jamie Conroy and Chelsea Herbert.

With changeable wet to dry conditions, the feature race held in the afternoon was won by Simon Evans followed by Bargwanna with John Midgley rounding out the podium.

In class two, Jamie Conroy put on an impressive display taking a win, followed by MacDonald and Herbert in third.

The combined results over the three races gave Evans the round win in class one and MacDonald took the honours in class two.

"Fantastic result, coming into the weekend, the championship was on the line, all we had to do was win races, and we did that," said Evans.

"We had a hard battle there with Jason Bargwanna and Nick Ross throughout the weekend it was hard and fair racing."

Evans made heavy contact with Nick Ross in race two of the weekend, sending his Smeg Holden skyward.

"Nick's car cut out, and my front wheel rode over this rear wheel, and for some reason it stayed in the air for a long time - I was seeing a lot of sky!"

For Conroy, taking the class two win in the feature race was a good recovery for the Invercargill racer after a tough start to the weekend with a gearbox issue in practice, forcing him to miss qualifying.

"We had quite a few issues over the weekend, we were never quite happy with the car," said Conroy.

"We were very lucky that Brad Lathrope lent us the front half of his drive shaft after ours was damaged on Saturday, and to Rob Wallace for loaning us his front splitter for the final race after ours was damaged in race two."

"It was definitely a challenging weekend, but certainly to grab two podiums today was a good result."

"It has been a frustrating season, and I think we've locked down third in the championship. I don't think we need luck, we just need the car to go, because when it is good, we're in there."