Motor Sport
Austrian Charlie Wurz won the Spirit Of A Nation Cup and maintained his championship lead when Round 2 of the Super Sprint New Zealand Motorsport Championship was held at Teretonga Park in Invercargill this weekend.
Wurz arrived at Teretonga leading the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship and maintained his lead, winning two of the three races including the feature, the Spirit Of A Nation Cup Race. Wurz made a good start from pole position in that contest, and led from lights to flag from kiwi Callum Hedge while another kiwi, Liam Sceats, did a fine job to hold off British driver Josh Mason to finish third.
The previous day had been a similar story when Wurz, racing at Teretonga Park 31 years after his father, former Formula 1 star Alexander Wurz had competed at the circuit, passed pole sitter, Hedge, around the outside of the daunting loop on the first lap of the race. Wurz and Hedge had opened a massive gap over third placed Jacob Abel of the United States by the end of the race.
While Wurz won the first and last races of the weekend it was Hedge who prevailed in Sunday’s reverse top eight grid race held in difficult conditions. It was damp at the start of the race but dried before another shower made conditions slippery. Australian Ryder Quinn led initially before American Ryan Shehan got past only for Hedge to come through and take the race by 5.5 seconds from Shehan and Quinn. Wurz had charged through to fourth place.
All three Toyota 86 Championship races were beauties.
Series leader, Brock Gilchrist of Matakana, took the spoils in the first, leading all the way from pole position after fastest qualifier, Dion Pitt of Auckland, was penalised due to a technical infringement. Clay Osborne of Morrinsville crossed the line second, just .185 of a second behind, with Australian Rylan Gray third. Pitt made amends on Sunday morning, winning a race which was interrupted by a Safety Car while light rain also made conditions tricky late in the race. Justin Allen of Feilding was second with Clay Osborne third. Gilchrist was back on the top step of the podium in the final race from Pitt and Allen.
Gilchrist took the top honours for the weekend while Gray took the Rookie honours and John Penny of Taupo was the Masters winner for the weekend.
Cromwell based rally star, Hayden Paddon (Hyundai i30 TCR) won the George Begg Festival Southern Sprint overall from Brian Scott of Dunedin in a Porsche 997.2 and Southlander Alex Crosbie in a Ford Mustang after three different winners claimed all three races.
Jordan Michels of Invercargill won the first in his MARC Ford Focus from Paddon and Liam MacDonald while Paddon took Sunday morning’s race after making a great tyre choice in the damp, rally like, conditions. Scott O’Donnell of Invercargill (Porsche 996 Cup) was second with Brian Scott third. MacDonald suffered a breakage before the race start and Michels spun off on slick tyres on the slippery surface.
O’Donnell took the finale, a handicap race, from Michels who started over a lap down with Alex Crosbie of Invercargill in a Mustang third.
The Dayle ITM Slalom Challenge provided some great entertainment on Saturday with Chloe Chambers of the USA, the Guinness World Record holder for vehicle slalom, up against Paddon, McLaren Extreme E Championship driver Emma Gilmour and North Island Formula Ford Champion Breanna Morris while two members of the Super Sprint television commentary team, Andrew Waite and Stephen McIvor, were late entries. It was Paddon who prevailed with a time of 28.67 seconds.
The next motor race meeting at Teretonga Park is the Star Insure Classic SpeedFest 2023 over the weekend of 18/19 February.