Greg Murphy leads the way at Pukekohe.
The master of V8 racing at Pukekohe, Greg Murphy, had his cage rattled over the weekend at round three of the V8 SuperTourers series, but experience and race cunning allowed him to hang tough for the win.
Murphy was untroubled in the first race on Sunday. Starting from P3 he was soon past Simon Evans and shortly afterwards lined up Ant Pedersen to take the win. It was in race two and race three of the weekend that Murphy had to endure a few hold-ups.
A resurgent Angus Fogg, having completely rebuilt his car after a big shunt at the opening round at Highlands Park, was on fire and leapt away at the start of race two to cross the line comfortably in front of Pedersen and Murphy. Within minutes of the race finishing, he and five other drivers were deemed to have jumped the start handing the win to Pedersen. Murphy's streak of seven straight wins came to an end with his third place finish. "It doesn't feel like I've been away at all because I've spent every minute fixing the car," said Fogg. "It's great to be back and the car's on fire - at last. It's been a struggle right from the start. We've now got our heads around the car and qualified well for a change. Unfortunately we've been caught up in some official stuff. Despite that, the cars feels good and even Murph came up to me after the race and said: 'Where the hell did that come from?' "
Pedersen said he was disappointed for Fogg, who was officially second, but would take the victory anyway. His grandfather, also a great motorsport enthusiast, died during the week and he was on the driver's mind during the weekend. "He was the man and I'll miss him," he said.
The final race of the weekend, the 34-lap feature, also threw up a fair amount of tension and excitement. A cloudburst 30 minutes before the start had teams wondering what tyres to use.
In the end everyone settled for wets as they rolled out on to the grid. Murphy was in the wars early on when Pedersen muscled past on the outside, pushing him across the kerb. Almost immediately Murphy knew there was something wrong with the car.
"The car sledged at the next corner and I thought it might have a puncture," Murphy said. "It was really bad over the hill and at turn one but I decided to keep going.
"By hitting the kerb I broke a front dampener and that made it a bit more difficult - it certainly wasn't that pleasant out there. I just kept going and managed to tool it home and we certainly didn't have the fastest car.
"I was a little bit shocked though that Ant's team decided to pit him when they did."
Young Aussie Morgan Haber and Aucklander Richard Moore closed right up and Haber hounded Murphy for several laps before the chequered flag appeared. The three all for the M3 team.
"That's my best result in a high-level category," said Haber. "I had a few cracks at Murph but he's smarter than me and he held me out."
Pedersen's teams decision to pit him when they did cost the Hamilton driver any chance of a top finish and he had to settle for seventh at the chequered flag. At one stage he held a big lead in the feature race, pushing hard on a damp track. But as the track dried he and some other drivers pitted for slick tyres and this proved a mistake, as their speed advantage was not enough to make up for the time lost in the pits.
"It's been a bit of an up and down weekend and it was probably the wrong call in hindsight. We were doing quite well at the front and the car felt good," said Pedersen.
Murphy now leads the championship by a healthy 170 points from Pedersen. The fourth round, and final of the sprint series, is again at Pukekohe as part of the V8 Supercar meeting over the long Anzac weekend. The three endurance rounds start in September.
Points after three rounds
1. Greg Murphy - 814
2. Ant Pedersen - 644
3. Simon Evans - 600
4. Andre Heimgartner - 595
5. Richard Moore - 572
6. Morgan Haber - 429