John McIntyre on top at Pukekohe
One race win apiece for Paul Manuell, John McIntyre and Kayne Scott saw the BNT V8s Championship battle take on a more traditional Holden versus Ford look after three dramatic races at Pukekohe this weekend.
The three drivers – all former champions in this class – took the top three places for the round, the Hydraulink 200, with McIntyre beating out Manuell then Scott for the weekend’s honours.
McIntyre now also heads the overall championship points’ table with 345 points ahead of Scott who, coming into this second round of the BNT V8s Championship shared the points’ lead with the injured Paul Radisich. The trio of Holdens prepared by Wayne Anderson’s AV8 Motorsport workshop – Andy Booth, Paul Manuell and Andrew Anderson – now complete the overall top five.
Pukekohe’s fast circuit delivered a few surprises for what started out as a field of 28 V8s during Friday’s testing.
Manuell scored his first pole position for a couple of seasons in the three-part shoot-out style qualifying on Saturday morning and went on to win the first of three races after an intense battle with Scott.
“It’s great to have the Holdens back into serious contention,” said Manuell who drives the distinctive red-orange Orix-backed Holden. “We’re relatively confident we can continue to perform as strongly at the next round at Powerbuilt Tools Motorsport later in November.”
Sunday’s second race took nearly two and a half hours to complete due to an eight car pile-up that required considerable work to the circuit’s safety barriers before racing could resume
No one was injured and until in-car camera footage is assessed in detail by officials it’s difficult to know exactly how the incident started, but the end result saw Chris Adams’ and Boyd Norwood’s car spin over the safety fence, while the cars of Nick Ross, Cam Hardy, Alan McCarrison, Angus Fogg and Tim Edgell were strewn along the left hand side of Pukekohe’s first sweeper.
When the race finally resumed, Manuell and McIntyre again battled intensely with McIntyre getting the chequered flag this time. Dean Perkins again finished third with Andrew Anderson and Paul Pedersen rounding out the top five.
“I had several attempts at getting passed Paul and managed to get the inside line coming over the hill,” said McIntyre. “It’s nice to claw back the deficit we had from Kayne after round one at Taupo and now extend a small lead.”
Compared to the weekend’s first two races, the crash-prone reverse grid third race was relatively incident-free with the safety car called out only once to retrieve debris on the circuit. Boyd Norwood, formerly a competitor in the development V8s series, had pole position with Chris Adams alongside. Andrew Porter was quick to take the lead, a position he held until Kiwi racing star Craig Baird passed him on the tenth lap.
From 13th, Scott roared through the field to pursue and catch Baird with five laps to go. Porter held on for third, while McIntyre and Manuell had also driven through the field to finish seventh and eighth respectively.
