Asian Motor Sports

It took the NZV8 Ute Series equivalent of a tiebreaker to find the winner of Round 3 of the 2009/2010 championship at Hampton Downs this weekend.

Motorsport New Zealand’s summer series of racing fires up this weekend at Pukekohe for the first outing of the six-round series.

Defending V8 Supercar champion Jamie Whincup today continued his 100 per cent start to the year by winning the first race of the Hamilton 400.

The season-ending New Zealand Motorsport championships at Pukekohe saw Kayne Scott claim bragging rights in the premier BNTV8 series.

Defending champion John McIntyre won all three races at Manfeild to re-take the lead with just one round of the 2008-09 BNT V8s Championship left to run.

Hamilton New Zealand driver Kayne Scott increased his lead at the midpoint of the New Zealand V8 motor racing series after two days of tense racing in Timaru.

Hamilton driver Kayne Scott snared pole and duly won the opening race of the New Zealand V8 championship round in Timaru yesterday. Meanwhile, British racer William Buller celebrated his first single-seater win after a hard fought Race One victory in the Toyota Racing Series.

The HPM racing team have been forced to withdraw from the next two rounds of the New Zealand V8 championship because no suitable replacement driver for the injured Paul Radisich has been signed.

Team manager Greg Bellingham said yesterday negotiations for a top-class driver replacement to continue racing their Ford had not succeeded.

The team had previously used top Australian driver Steve Owen, winner of the Fujitsu Development V8 championship, the second tier of the Australian V8 Supercar series.

Bellingham said the Melbourne driver was disadvantaged because he was not familiar with the tracks at Timaru and Invercargill which would host V8 races over the next two weekends.

“They are circuits Steve has never driven and with him forced to start from the back of the grid for the Timaru weekend it meant he would be out of the running for round honours.

“That wasn’t fair on Steve, the team, or the sponsors who fund the effort.

“We’re really disappointed - the South Island leg is our favourite part of the championship season - instead, we’ve now got a new project to work on.”

With three hard-fought second places, Hamilton race driver Kayne Scott has moved into the lead of the BNT V8s Championship after the third of this season’s seven rounds in Christchurch this weekend.

LG Motorsport driver Angus Fogg has taken out race one of the BNTV8s opening race at Powerbuilt Tools Raceway at Ruapuna Park Christchurch, New Zealand.

Kayne Scott took his Ford to pole position for the first race of the New Zealand V8 championship third round in Christchurch today. Scott was fastest in each of the three qualifying sessions at Ruapuna Park.

Not even one of the biggest crashes ever seen at Pukekohe Park Raceway was enough to keep a good man down as Nick Ross reflects on how he thought his race weekend and perhaps the remainder of the season was over.

Foremost in the minds of New Zealand V8 drivers at Ruapuna for the third round of New Zealand’s national motor sport series, will be staying out of trouble and avoiding a re-run of the big mess that happened at Pukekohe.

A spectacular seven-car pile up immediately after the start of race two for the NZV8s occurred at the entrance to turn one, with the field jockeying for position after the rolling start.

Paul Manuell made it a start-to-finish win in the Orix Holden in the first of three races this weekend in the BNT V8s Championship.