Scott dominates as McIntyre suffers
Defending champion John McIntyre had the worst possible start to the weekend when mechanical failure caused his retirement from the first of the last three races of the 2007-08 New Zealand V8s Championship at Teretonga Park outside Invercargill.
Despite having his 115 point margin over closest rival Angus Fogg reduced to 55 points, McIntyre still feels reasonably confident he can take the championship title.
“By the time I’d coasted around to the pits after the engine blew, I’d already worked out that even if Angus wins tomorrow I would have to finish around 20th or worse, then add in unknown factor of the reverse grid race where I’ll start closer to the front and we should be fine for the championship.”
Meanwhile Kayne Scott was pleased to have finally scored a pole position with a time of 1:02.552 in the Fujitsu Ford, and then romped home to take a handy win – the first of each this season for the former V8 champion who continues to hold third place for the 2007-08 title behind McIntyre and Fogg.
“It’s almost a sense of relief to have the win and pole this weekend,” says Scott who demonstrates his commitment to the New Zealand V8 series by choosing to race in Invercargill this weekend, rather than at Eastern Creek with Team Kiwi Racing in the V8 Supercars. “This season we have often been fastest earlier in qualifying and then Andy [Booth] will put in a quick one or Angus will. It’s really satisfying to get pole after all the hard work we’ve all put in; interestingly it’s exactly the same time we set last year at Teretonga to take pole. I love this circuit and have done well here many times.”
In the newly-sponsored Big Ben Pies Tasman Motorsport Holden, Booth took second, after setting the quickest times earlier in qualifying. “There wasn’t anything in it in qualifying – we were just 0.086 seconds slower than Kayne. We did our best but it’s nice to be consistently quick and able to repeat the pace we had at Timaru.”
Holding second place in the championship, Fogg’s chances of winning look better than they did, but the Havoline Ford driver is concentrating on simply doing the job of finishing the last two races. “To finish first, first you have to finish. I was pushing as hard as I could behind Andy. It’s one thing to get within a couple of car lengths, but it’s another thing to get past.”
With starting positions for the second race determined by the fastest lap times each driver sets in the first race, Scott will be on pole again with Fogg beside him, their two Fords followed by Booth and Manuell making up a Holden second row. McIntyre starts from the back of the grid after his team works hard overnight to replace and test a new engine.
The New Zealand V8s have an 18 lap race and then a 22 lap reverse grid on Sunday to complete the official championship.
