Asian Motor Sports

Team New Zealand A1 GP star Matt Halliday enjoyed a winning return to the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup at Christchurch’s Powerbuilt International Raceway at Ruapuna Park over the weekend.

Halliday, 26, who arrived in Christchurch for the second round of this year’s Battery Town Series fresh from finishing sixth in the latest round of the A1GP series, set the fastest time in qualifying on Saturday morning and went on to win all three Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup races, despite the best efforts of top local drivers Ross Rutherford and Kevin Bell.

Halliday has been the top placed local professional in the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup (and before it the Trans-Tasman GT3 Cup) series driver for the past two years but this season has had to step back and play a fill-in role for series organiser European Motors and sponsor Placemakers as his A1GP commitments allow. (Source: MotorSport New Zealand)

This weekend’s opportunity arose because replacement Fabian Coulthard was competing at - and winning! - the final round of the Wright Patton Shakespeare Carrera Cup Australia series and Halliday says he didn’t have to be asked twice.

“It was great. It’s been a nice, relaxing weekend, and I’ve really enjoyed spending time back with the International Motorsport people. They’re a really good bunch of guys and it is always refreshing to get back and work with them. This class is so close and when there are two or three good guys in a class like this it is always just a matter of whoever gets the last little things right, so yes, it was good to get back into the Placemakers’ Porsche.”

In qualifying on Saturday morning Halliday set a blistering pole time of 1.25.384 and in the first race of the weekend on Saturday afternoon he drove away from Ross Rutherford and Dean Cockerton to cross the line almost nine seconds in front.

Rutherford, who last season won the Tag Heuer Challenge for non-professional drivers, matched Halliday off the line, but that was as close as it got, the ease with which Halliday established then managed the lead leaving the large crowd gathered at the Christchurch circuit in no doubt as to why the young Auckland international has just been offered a test by one of Europe’s top GP2 class teams.

Rutherford also finished second behind Halliday in the second Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup race of the weekend on Sunday morning, but was pushed back to third in the longer (14 lap) final race of the weekend on Sunday afternoon by former category regular Kevin Bell, who like Halliday was back for a one-off drive, in his case subbing for defending Battery Town series champion Craig Baird in the Continental Car Services GT3 Cup car.

Halliday paid tribute to Rutherford after Saturday’s race and it is Rutherford who now leads the 2005/06 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Championship points standings after two rounds.

“Ross is very quick - I remember he was right behind Hairdo and I last year - so whilst it’s easy to think that I’m here to win the races you can’t take anything for granted.”

As it turned out, Rutherford’s attack was blunted before he even got in the car this weekend, the 38-year-old Hamilton businessman tripping on the bottom stair of his team’s motorhome on Friday evening and spraining his right (throttle and brake) ankle.

After the first race Rutherford also discovered that the tyre gauge his crew members were using to set his car’s tyre pressures had proved to be faulty (it was reading 5 psi out) and consequently the tyres were not ‘coming on’ until late in the race. When trying to work out whey the car didn’t feel as stable under brakes as it has at other tracks, the technicians also discovered and replaced a bent front tie rod.

Former Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup series regular Dean Cockerton, who finished an excellent third in good friend Jamie Peters’ Starline Homes Porsche GT3 Cup car in the first race of the weekend on Saturday, again shadowed Rutherford to the line in the second race, but finished fourth behind Halliday, Kevin Bell and Rutherford in the final race.

In that race Kevin Bell finished second after a brilliant move on Rutherford at a late race res-start.

Bell thoroughly enjoyed his return to the class, despite spinning out out of third place in Saturday’s race when he selected first gear instead of third.

His second place in the 14 lap final was a master-stroke, when he cleanly jumped Rutherford at the re-start.

“I’ve had a fantastic weekend,” he said. “I started off a wee bit rusty but came right at the end.”

Bell made the best of the restart - after the safety car was called out when Nick Gordon went straight off at the hairpin and into the tyre wall - jumping Rutherford and getting within a car length or Halliday, and the move, he says, was planned.

“It was a matter of ‘here’s an opportunity, Go!’,” Bell said. ” To be fair, I felt really confident in the car and I knew I was going to catch Ross. He was only quicker than me at one place on the track and I was getting a good drive out of the sweeper so I knew that if I got past him he wasn’t going to be able to do much about it.”

Rutherford, understandably, saw it another way (“I was between gears - second and first - and when Matt finally went I couldn’t really do anything about it” ) but he was buoyed by the fact that with two seconds and a third he now leads the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup points standings.

A strong fourth in Saturday’s race, but seventh in the second race on Sunday (after starting from the pit lane) and ninth in the third race (after a stop-go penalty for contact with another car) was local prestige car dealer Rick Armstrong who showed impressive speed on his home track in qualifying, stopping the clocks just 0.125 of a second slower than Rutherford.

Andrew Bagnall signaled his return to the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Chmpionship with an excellent fifth place in Saturday’s race but unfortunately damaged his car too badly to start the third race after a high-speed spin early in the second race.

Fellow Aucklander Dean Fulford also found himself in the wars after qualifying sixth fastest then finishing the first race in sixth place.

In the second he got a great start and towards the end latched on to teammates Ross Rutherford and Dean Cockerton. By the last lap he was right on Cockerton’s bumper but spun when he attempted a brave passing move two corners from home, letting both Kevin Bell and Graeme Cameron by.

Both Bell and Cameron got better starts in the final race but Fulford was circulating close behind the pair when this time he was nudged into a spin by Rick Armstrong.

While he was able to continue, and Armstrong was served with a stop-go penalty, points-wise that was the end of his challenge, particularly in the Tag-Heuer Challenge section in which he competes for local, non-professional driver honours with Armstrong and defending title holder Rutherford.

In the Class 2 category for ‘01 and ‘02 model year cars the top qualifier was Connel McLaren from fellow Aucklander Peter Milliner, Rob Steele and Nick Gordon. McLaren, Milliner and Steele finished line astern in ninth, tenth and eleventh position in the first race, but in the second McLaren finished eighth to Steele’s tenth and Gordon’s twelfth.

Milliner and his World magazine-backed team ran out of time to repair his car (after his accident in the second) for the final race, leaving Steele to claim Class 2 honours with an excellent sixth place,with McLaren eighth.

There is now a break of just over a month before the 2005/06 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Championship resumes - at Invercargill’s Teretonga Raceway over the January 14/15 weekend.

There, newly crowned 2005 Wright Patton Shakespeare Carrera Cup Australia champion Fabian Coulthard will be back behind the wheel of the Placemakers Porsche GT3 Cup car as Matt Halliday prepares for another round of the inaugural A1 GP series overseas.

Also back for more Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup action with be defending champion Craig Baird in the Continental Car Services GT3.

2005/06 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Championship Rnd 2 Powerbuilt International Raceway at Ruapuna Park Christchurch Sat/Sun Nov 26 & 27 2005

Qualifying

1. Matt Halliday 1.25.384
2. Ross Rutherford 1.26.318
3. Rick Armstrong 1.26.443
4. Kevin Bell 1.26.938
5. Dean Cockerton 1.26.976
6. Dean Fulford 1.27.249
7. Andrew Bagnall 1.27.330
8. Graeme Cameron 1.27.956
9. Connel McLaren 1.27.982
10. Peter Milliner 1.27.994
11. Rob Steele 1.28.250
12. Nick Gordon 1.28.699
13. Paul Kelly 1.29.604
14. Michael Morton 1.31.817

Race 1

1. Matt Halliday 11.36.740
2. Ross Rutherford +8.971
3. Dean Cockerton ++10.482
4. Rick Armstrong +10.998
5. Andrew Bagnall +15.207
6. Dean Fulford +15.546
7. Graeme Cameron +16.147
8. Kevin Bell +22.372
9. Connel McLaren +23.301
10. Peter Milliner +23.811
11. Rob Steele +30.914
12. Paul Kelly +32.002
13. Nick Gordon +44.769
14. Michael Morton +1.04.525

Race 2

1. Matt Halliday 11.35.316
2. Ross Rutherford +10.372
3. Dean Cockerton +10.479
4. Kevin Bell +13.164
5. Graeme Cameron +14.390
6. Dean Fulford +22.054
7. Rick Armstrong +22.125
8. Connel McLaren +22.709
9. Paul Kelly +25.840
10. Rob Steele +39.739
11. Michael Morton +46.420
12. Nick Gordon +46.534

Race 3

1. Matt Halliday 23.43.813
2. Kevin Bell +4.096
3. Ross Rutherford +4.592
4. Dean Cockerton +6.781
5. Graeme Cameron +10.911
6. Rob Steele +13.997
7. Paul Kelly +23.776
8. Connel McLaren +31.587
9. Rick Armstrong +33.233
10. Michael Morton +45.439
11. Dean Fulford +2.23.251

dnf: Nick Gordon 8 laps

CALENDAR

Rnd 1 Nov 4-6 2005 Pukekohe Park Raceway Pukekohe
Rnd 2 Nov 25-27 2005 Powerbuilt Tools International Raceway at Ruapuna Park Christchurch
Rnd 3 Jan 13-15 2006 Teretonga Park Raceway Invercargill
Rnd 4 Jan 20-22 2006 Timaru International Motor Raceway (Levels) Timaru
Rnd 5 Jan 27-29 2006 Powerbuilt Raceway at Ruapuna Park Christchurch
Rnd 6 Feb 17-19 2006 Manfeild Autocourse Feilding
Rnd 7 Mar 17-19 2006 Taupo Motor Racing Circuit Taupo
Rnd 8 April 21-23 2006 Pukekohe Park Raceway Pukekohe (Placemakers V8 Supercar meeting)