Reigning ENEOS North Island Endurance Series champions and New Zealand national endurance champions Wet & Forget Racing are back to defend their North Island title with champ Simon Evans joined by the experienced racer Chris Hanley for the first weekend of the series at Hampton Downs this weekend.
The team’s modified Holden Commodore SuperTourer came from behind to win the national title recently at Pukekohe Park and the team have made a small number of further developments and improvements to what is arguably the country’s fastest Holden ahead of this year’s North Island rounds at Hampton Downs, Manfeild and Pukekohe.
“We have made some further changes to the car from Pukekohe and we would have loved to test those out ahead of this weekend and also give Chris a bit of time in the car,” explained champ Simon Evans. “However, one or two issues outside of our control put paid to that so we will set our work roster for the weekend as we always do, work on the set up of the car and dial it in as effectively as we can so that we can try and be as competitive as possible during the three hour race.
“Once again we are going to be up against far more exotic machinery but Chris knows his way around Hampton Downs, has plenty of racing miles under his belt this season and we are looking forward to having him in the team. It’s going to be great to be back out racing and taking on the stiff competition.”
Hanley himself is under no illusions about the challenge ahead. “I do have some brief SuperTourer experience from five years ago but this machine is another stage advanced again and we know it is very, very fast,” he said. “Having said that, my job will to be consistent and not to make any mistakes and that’s all I will be focusing on. It’s obviously also a fabulous opportunity for me and my sponsor Placemakers to be in a car with such a presence and a real chance of success.”
At least four current or recently Homologated FIA GT3-specification cars will battle for honours with the Wet & Forget Holden in the Three Hour race. A Reiter Engineering SaReNi Camaro, two Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3s and one Audi R8 LMS GT3. Two new FIA GT4 homologated cars from McLaren and Porsche will also race. There are no fewer than 29 cars in the One Hour and 33 cars in the Three Hour events.
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