Championship leader Chris White of Prebbleton in Canterbury has taken another win in the Nexen Tyre NZ Mazda Racing Series at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park in North Waikato today, but it was by the barest of margins.
White (main photo left) led ex-pat South African Stiaan Kriel (main photo right) across the line by just .2 of a second after a clean but hard-fought race throughout the field.
The event is both Round 3 of the Nexen Tyre NZ Mazda Racing Series New Zealand and North Island Championships.
Earlier in the day White and Kriel had only qualified sixth and ninth respectively as Aucklander Warren Crowther blazed to pole position with a time of 1 minute 14.958 seconds. Impressive rookies Arthur Broughan of Tuamarina near Blenheim and Mac Templeton of Prebbleton were second and third fastest respectively with Stu Lawton of Wellington next fastest. Broughan was the only other driver to dip under the 1 minute 15 second mark. There was less than half a second across the top seven cars in qualifying and less than two seconds across the top twenty-three cars.
In the race Crowther finished third behind White and Kriel with Lawton fourth and Templeton and Broughan next. Sam Dashfield of Auckland was seventh followed by Will Kitching of Timaru after his crew had worked tirelessly to get him on the grid after gearbox issues in qualifying.
Karl Gaines of Auckland and Matt Dodd of Christchurch rounded out the top ten today and will take the front row for tomorrow morning’s reverse top ten grid race over 12 laps at 10.33am. The final race of the round on Sunday afternoon will be over 10 laps at 2.11pm.
The series is part of the Super Sprint Motorsport NZ Championship programme. For those who cannot be trackside this weekend Sky Sport will have coverage of Sunday’s action featuring the Nexen Tyre NZ Mazda Racing Series final two races of the round.
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