Mitch Evans, race-hardened by a successful season in Europe and fresh from a “boot camp” in Australia with Mark Webber, got a clean drive off pole position to lead Saturday’s 15-lap race from start to finish, crossing the line with a margin of 2.7 seconds over second-placed Hannes van Asseldonk of Holland. He is back in the series this weekend in preparation for his defence of his New Zealand Grand Prix title at Manfeild next Sunday.

On Sunday morning, the race winning was handed to young Italian driver Raffaele Marciello, who took the lead at the start and held off all comers, extending himself a significant lead to take his maiden TRS win.

The front row of the grid for the 20-lap NZ Motor Cup race on Sunday afternoon was an all-Kiwi affair, with Mitch Evans on pole and Nick Cassidy alongside. The second row of the grid saw Hannes van Assseldonk line up behind Evans with Raffaele Marciello alongside.

Off the start, Cassidy shot into the lead. “All weekend I’ve really been able to master the starts, I’m really pleased with how it’s come together. Taupo was pretty bad by comparison, I couldn’t seem to get anything right off the starts,” Cassidy said afterward.

Making his customary aggressive start, Hannes van SAsseldonk had comne through to second place, rookie Lucas Auer past Marciello and holding fourth.

The race was immediately interrupted when Bruno Bonifacio went off at turn 2, bringing out the safety car.

Three laps behind the safety car while Bonifacio’s car was recovered bunched the field up close together, and when the race went back to “green” Evans slipped neatly past van Asseldonk to be second behind Cassidy.

The gap between leader Cassidy and Evans stretched out close to a minute, Evans then mounting a charge over several laps to cut the gap back to .4 sec but then finding himself unable to get closer to Cassidy.

Behind them Dmitry Suranovich and Shahaan Engineer were side by side in the hairpin and all the way around to the front straight, Suranovich squeezing ahead of the young Indian driver.

With eight laps remaining the top ten race order was Cassidy, Evans, van Asseldonk, Auer, Marciello, Josh Hill, Nathanael Berthon, Jordan King, Jono Lester and Southland’s Damon Leitch. Jono Lester had started 12th and would go as high as eighth overall.

Dmitry Suranovich went off at turn 8, unable to regain the track. This brought out the safety car once more.
From the re-start Cassidy once more leapt away from the field, re-establishing his lead with impunity.

On the last lap, Leitch put an ambitious passing move on Jono Lester at the track’s tight downhill left hand hairpin, pushing his car up the inside of Lester and onto the track edge “ripple” strips. He slid sideways into Lester’s car, the impact spinning Lester completely around mid-track at the exit of the turn and throwing Leitch’s car into the air.

Leitch landed on the grass, his right rear suspension smashed; Lester was able to rejoin. Shahaan Engineer also visited the grass to get past the stricken car of Leitch and the spun car of Lester.

But even as the melee was sorted out, Cassidy was across the finish line to win the prestigious NZ Motor Cup and extend his championship points lead. He had posted fastest lap of the race in the process, a 1:00.944. Cassidy now has a championship tally of 730 and a 26 point advantage over van Asseldonk in second. Leitch , who led after the first round at Teretonga, has banked enough points to preserve third in the championship going into the final round, which culminates in the New Zealand Grand Prix next weekend at Manfeild.

Marciello avoided an accident at turn one which involved and eliminated yesterdays winner, kiwi Mitch Evans as well as Josh Hill, Sheban Siddiqi and Frenchman Nathanaël Berthon.

M2 Competition and Giles Motorsport drivers filled the top five places with Lucas Auer coming home second ahead of pole man Jordan King. Behind them was Hannes van Asseldonk in P4, series leader Nick Cassidy in P5 and kiwi Jono Lester in P6.

The 20 lap ‘New Zealand Motor Cup’ will be held at 3.33pm this afternoon.

Evans, race-hardened by a successful season in Europe and fresh from a “boot camp” in Australia with Mark Webber, got a clean drive off pole position to lead Saturday’s 15-lap race from start to finish, crossing the line with a margin of 2.7 seconds over second-placed Hannes van Asseldonk of Holland.

“I didn’t get a perfect start, a bit of wheelspin off the line, but once we were through the first corner things settled down into a comfortable pace. I think we can go faster tomorrow..”

Current championship points leader Nick Cassidy had qualified second and started alongside Evans, but was shouldered aside by van Asseldonk who made a strong start from the second row and was the only driver to attempt to stay with the flying Evans.

Along with second place and a valuable top-up to his championship points, van Asseldonk had the satisfaction of setting a new race lap record for Hampton Downs of 1:00.919, well inside the existing mark of 1:01.846. Mitch Evans had broken the record two laps before, then saw van Asseldonk set the mark lower again in a spirited charge during the final two laps of the race.

Lucas Auer was fourth overall and first rookie across the line; Ferrari Driver Academy inductee Raffaele Marciello was fifth.

Testing takes place over Thursday and Friday with Qualifying and Race 1 Saturday and 2 races on Sunday including the prestiguous New Zealand Motor Cup.

Thursday Testing 5:00 – 7:00pm
Friday Sesson 1 – 11:00am (30 minutes) and Session 2 – 2:25pm (30 minutes)
Saturday Qualifying 11:45 am (30 minutes), Race 1 3:59 pm (15 laps)
Sunday Race 2 11:19am (15 laps), Race 3 3:33 (20 Laps) (New Zealand Motor Cup)

Starting positions for Race One are determined by the fastest lap time above, fastest to the front,
Starting positions for Race Two will be the finishing positions from Race 1 with the top 6 finishers reversed.
Starting positions for Race Three (Feature Race) are determined by the average of each drivers fastest 2 lap times achieved in the qualifying session.

Support classes for the event include;
Sports Cars & Star Cars
HQ
Formula First
Pre 65
Formula Ford
SS2000
Supermini
Pro 7
Bridgestone Porche

Qualifying starts from 9:30am Saturday and racing from 2:00pm, Sunday racing from 9:20am with the last race at 4:45pm.

Englishman Jonathan Green will arrive in Auckland on Friday and will stay in New Zealand to do the television race commentary for Hampton Downs and the New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild the following weekend.

Green is already familiar with the New Zealand single seater series because he has provided the TV commentary for the three TRS rounds at Teretonga, Timaru and Taupo. Green has been working with Dave Hedge’s Auckland-based production company Volt TV to voice and commentate the first three rounds using the latest media technology

He is vastly experienced in motorsport and a number of other sports. His company, Green Inc., has a facilities In the UK, Malaysia and the USA and his team includes producers, editors, commentators, presenters and writers.

Green is one of the world’s leading motor sports broadcasters with more than 20 years at the sharp end of the sport as producer, presenter, reporter and commentator and is one of a handful in his field that he covers both two and four wheel motor sport from Formula One to Moto GP and World Superbikes.

He is best known for his motor sport commentaries but Green has also presented and commentated on football, rugby and cricket World Cups the Winter Olympics. More recently he has ‘voiced’more diverse sports including Americas Cup, Red Bull Air Races, Snooker, Surfing, darts, Americas Cup yachting and Red Bull Air Racing.

Green started out as a reporter for Channel TV in the channel Islands he then spent a year as Sports reporter for all new satellite of BSkyB in 1990. He moved to Hong Kong for the exciting start up of what was to become part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Empire “Star TV.” While at Star he honed his Presenter and Producer Skills and become responsible for all Star TV’s motorsport output which covered Formula 1, Indy Cars, MotoGP, World Superbikes and the Asian Fesitval of Speed. He went on to co-produce Star TV’s flagship show, Grand Prix Sunday, which covered all forms of Motorsport in a five hour live studio show.

In 1996 he left Star with a unique opportunity to be the live producer/reporter for ESPN’s American Formula One coverage. He attended all 17 grand Prix bringing in side story for the 1996 and 1997 seasons covering the famous duels between Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill; and subsequently the Villeneuve versus Schumacher battle for the 1997 title.

Returning to the UK at the end of 1997, Green began joined Sky Sports as a reporter on World Superbikes during the era when Britain’ Carl Fogarty won four World Titles.

He formed his own production company in 1998 and began producing programmes for Star TV on Formula One as well being the executive producer for the Asian Fesitval of Speed He also established himself as the voice of the Macau Grand Prix following in the footsteps of Murray Walker and James Allen and is now in his 21st year of service for the prestigious Asian event.

In 2000 Green became the presenter of Sky Sports in the UK (BSKYB) latest motor Sport adventure “Speedway.” Now in its 11th year of production, it is one of Sky’s most popular products and has a regular live weekly two and half hour show based around the British league. He was also the official commentator for International Grand Prix Speedway.

In 2004 Green became the official Voice and commentator for the World Superbikes championship and through Green Inc is the Editor and producer of their international highlights shows and Superstars Touring car show.

In 2012 Green will once again travel to five continents to all 14 rounds of the World Superbike championship broadcasting to 180 countries including Sky Sports in New Zealand. Most recently Jonathan returned to the Formula One in the form of “F1 in Cinema” a new dynamic coverage of Formula designed specifically for movie theatres worldwide. The programmes aim to take Formula 1 to wider audience than ever before with the use of all the latest gizmos broadcasting has to offer. Now with a base in Austin, Texas Green’s production company Inc are pursuing several motorsport related projects in Texas connected with the building of The Formula circuit there due to be opened this coming November.

Three races, three different winners, but the Toyota Racing Series lead remains firmly with Auckland racer Nick Cassidy.

Jordan King, Cassidy and Dutch racer Hannes van Asseldonk all won a race at the third round of the TRS, held at Taupo this weekend.

The championship points table as the TRS reaches its midpoint sees New Zealand drivers still in control. A fifth in the first race, a win in the second and eighth in the feature race were enough to keep Nick Cassidy well in control of the championship, taking 546 points to the next round at Hampton Downs with Damon Leitch second on 517 and Josh Hill moving up to third on 424 points.

The weekend began with top results for the British drivers Jordan King and Josh Hill. King took his first win of the 2012 Toyota Racing Series on Saturday, setting a new outright lap record for the 3.32 km Taupo Motorsport Park track in the process. The identical Toyota Racing Series cars are consistently the fastest domestic race category; King’s new benchmark at Taupo is 1:24.444.

Racing from pole position, King set his mark on the race from the green light, sweeping ahead of young Austrian Lucas Auer (nephew of Formula One great Gerhard Berger) on the short start straight and into the first corner. He was never headed, extending his lead to three seconds during the race.

King’s win set up an historic 1-2 for the TRS. He and Josh Hill are both members of the British Racing Drivers Club’s elite Rising Stars mentoring programme.

In the second race, championship leaders Nick Cassidy and Damon Leitch re-asserted their dominance with a 1-2 result that extended their championship points lead.

Ferrari Driver Academy racer Raffaele Marciello held the lead briefly during the opening laps but was reeled in by Leitch and Cassidy, who carved through the field to the front over four laps. Cassidy was fourth after a bad start but recovered in a stirring drive to win, setting fastest lap of the race on lap 14 of 15, a 1:24.486. High winds slowed the cars on the front straight and meant the new lap record set by British driver Jordan King remained intact.

The flying Kiwi drivers are outnumbered 3:1 in the series but have shared the championship points lead from the first round onward, Leitch holding the early lead and Cassidy leading from the second round onward.

In the feature race, the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy, Hannes van Asseldonk and Josh Hill had the front row, and away from the start the pair were locked in a wheel to wheel battle for the first corner. Van Asseldonk emerged with the lead, harried by Hill for the next five laps. The Dutch driver slowly opened out a lead of half a second, then a whole second, then two.

He was pushing his car to the limit, losing grip under braking into the tight left-right of turn 12 lap after lap. Others too were having trouble slowing from the 235 km/h main straight, including Lucas Auer and Jordan King, both of whom straight-lined the corner more than once.

Fastest lap of the race was set by van Asseldonk, a 1:24.707 on lap 7 of 20.

Ferrari Driver Academy racer Raffaele Marciello was continuing to have problems with his car’s set-up, locking front tyres as he braked for turn 12, turn 1 and turn 7. He flat-spotted his left front tyre and pitted on lap ten to have it replaced.

King was now working on Hill as Hill lost touch with the race leader, and lined him up for a pass but then undid his hard work when he went straight on under brakes at turn 12.

Jono Lester began to reel in Nick Cassidy, who had found his tyres losing grip as the race went past middle distance.

He was not able to overtake Cassidy but said his car’s set-up was significantly improved.

With seven laps to go, van Asseldonk had consolidated his lead; Hill two seconds behind and King another two seconds adrift.

Fourth overall, Felix Serralles headed up a freight train of talented young racers, but was pulling away from Lucas Auer, Nathanael Berthon, Bruno Bonifacio and the Kiwis Nick Cassidy and Jono Lester.

Up front, Josh Hill’s car was proving tail-happy under heavy braking and he was losing touch with van Asseldonk. The Dutch racer controlled the gap over the last two laps, taking an unpressured win to be fourth for the series.

The 2012 Toyota Racing Series now heads to Hampton Downs for the fourth round of five. The feature race of the coming weekend is for the historic NZ Motor Cup, a trophy with some of motor racing’s most famous names on it.

* image attached: Hannes van Asseldonk leads Josh Hill on his way to victory in the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy race

TAUPO SATURDAY 28th JANUARY 2012

Sorted!!

Weather fantastic as we get the day under way.

Clear blue skies, warm sun, lake glistening, holiday makers holiday making, engines being warmed up, the smell of warm tyres, E85 fuel, hot coffee and burnt toast with slip, slop, slapping going on all over the place and European pale skinned bodies turning a gentle shade of light strawberry.

Summer racing at Taupo…beautiful!!!…and more to come on Sunday as well apparently.

TRS qualifying for 30 mins this morning (remember race 1 grid today is on straight qualy times, race 2 grid tomorrow is on the average of a driver’s two best qualy times and race 3 grid is determined on the finishing order of race 2 with the top six finishers of that race in reverse order. Got it? It gets easier for me to understand every time I say it) and race 1 this afternoon over 15 laps.

Tomorrow (Sunday) is race 2 over 15 laps and then race 3, The ‘Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy’ is over 20 laps and having just relayed the qualifying procedure it has now changed a little bit.
Race 2 grid is now the finishing order of race 1 with top six reversed and race 3 grid is the average of the driver’s fastest two qualy laps.

This change is in operation for both the Taupo and the Hampton Downs rounds.

Remarkably, and a bit disappointingly, there were no incidents with the drivers in last evening’s jet boating ride.

Nobody fell out of the boat, nobody got wet, well, very wet anyway, and the only thing to show for it was huge grins from all on board…..apart that is from Chris the TV cameraman on board the boat to get some action shots. Apparently he was getting a bit seasick, or river sick or whatever it’s called when you try and hold a big TV camera to your eye when the jet boat you are in is trying to throw the entire contents of the boat and it’s passengers, into the river.

I was looking forward to relaying some unfortunate’s tale but I thought it would be a driver, darn it.
A bit symptomatic of the weekend really, all a bit quiet on the misfortune front which doesn’t make for good tale telling by me.

I’m sure things will brighten up though.

Sam MacNeil is part of the TRS series this year performing the role of driver coach and BBQ operator, as I think I mentioned in a previous epistle.

A very accomplished racing driver in his own right, on Thursday he was also performing the duty of ‘track checker’ and marshal.

Part of that job meant he had to drive around the track, at some speed, before free practice began to ensure the track was clear of any debris or foreign objects that may have hampered the drivers.

To do this job he was driving the Toyota FJ Cruiser (coveted by me as I’m sure you are aware) and on one speedy sweep past the pits the car’s normal guardian, Steve Boyce, was witness to the incredible late braking and cornering of Sam and the FJ.

Steve got on the phone and in very polite terms, made up of essentially single syllable and very short words, informed Sam to take care of his (Steve’s) truck. Sam, I am sure, was smiling from ear to ear.

A little later in the day both Steve and myself had the opportunity to ride with Sam in the car as he checked the track and it was then that I appreciated both the skill of Sam as a driver and the sheer ‘stickability’ of the FJ.

Cruising into turn one at unabated speed and braking at the 50 metre board, Sam hauled the thing around the corner with me expecting the car to wallow like a super tanker but instead it rolled slightly to the right and then just stopped rolling to take the corner almost flat in yaw terms.

I was amazed at just how the car made absolute mincemeat of the corner and simply took it in it’s stride.
My admiration of the FJ (and Sam actually but don’t tell him) has got even higher. I will say this as discreetly as I can as shouting about the FJ in a previous blog has had no affect whatsoever so I will try the opposite tack now.

Nice ride!!!

So, to qualifying.

Very, very exciting with King, Auer, Hill, van Asseldonk and Marciello all putting in a time that we thought was unbeatable for pole position but with King finally coming out on top with a time more than one second below the existing lap record.

Now I know that lap records can only be set during a race but it bodes well for a new one to be set today or over the weekend.

The order was as above with the first twelve drivers not only within one second of the pole time but also under the lap record.

That meant that TRS rookie Jono Lester was actually under the lap record time but still in twelfth position.
A bit galling for him I guess.

One of our TRS number had a small heart problem some while ago and, remarkably enough, his heart surgeon is also an avid photographer and race fan.

He, the surgeon, is here this weekend taking photos and has the proper accreditation and flouro vest so any problems with hearts and we are well taken care of. Not too many series can boast their own specialist in the paddock eh!?

Race 1 got away but finished with a protest but more of that later.

Chris Vlok had a dragging clutch approaching the grid and the car didn’t get away at the start but he got going and joined the fray about half a lap down and Melvin Moh didn’t actually get away on the warm up lap when his car refused to move after a CV joint broke.

A staggering start from Jordan King got him straight into the lead and he was never headed despite some serious attention from Josh Hill who was also coming under some pressure from van Asseldonk who in turn was harried all race long by Marciello.

Lucas Auer had a couple of runs over the dirt through the last complex of turns

Good hard racing from them and that extended all the way down the field.

As always (getting boring that phrase) you can read, and see (on Sky TV next week), the race report elsewhere but suffice to say it started with a three abreast battle behind a two abreast battle all the way around turn 1 and into turn two. Fantastic battles all the way down the field.

I mentioned a protest above but I shall say no more about it as the protest was found to be without merit and the result stands.

King 1st, Hill 2nd and van Asseldonk 3rd.

Electronics man Richard Moss took his usual after practice / qualifying / race walk along pit lane to check if any of the teams have any issues or need any assistance or information and for the first time that he can remember in the eight year that he has been involved with the TRS there were absolutely no issues, complaints, moans or problems…with the electronics anyway!

Incidentally, the lap record set today does not break the old lap record as the track has been changed subtly over the last year by moving the tyre barrier on the last complex of turns.

That means that Mitch Evans ‘old’ lap record still stands and the ‘new’ lap record established today at 1minute 24.444 seconds set by Jordan King is now the lap record for this configuration of track.

More later.

Bob

British driver Jordan King took his first win of the 2012 Toyota Racing Series today, setting fastest lap for the 3.32 km Taupo Motorsport Park track in the process.

Racing from pole position, King set his mark on the race from the green light, sweeping ahead of young Austrian Lucas Auer (nephew of Formula One great Gerhard Berger) on the short start straight and into the first corner. He was never headed, extending his lead to three seconds during the race. He is the fifth different winner in seven races over three rounds of the series, which reaches its midpoint this weekend.

Auer fell back from his front row start and finished seventh, while series leader Nick Cassidy was fifth. Southlander Damon Leitch hunted Auer through the closing laps of the race and made a clean pass to demote him from sixth to seventh at the chequered flag.

The placing is significant for the first race tomorrow, where the top six positions are reversed and the driver who finished sixth today – Leitch – has pole for the start tomorrow. Leitch’s effort makes that race an all-Kiwi affair off the front row with Nick Cassidy alongside Leitch.

King said afterward he had worked hard on his race strategy, and he was elated to see the field strung out in his rear view mirrors as the 15 lap race entered its closing moments.

With Josh Hill (son of 1996 Formula One World Champion Damon and grandson of F1 Champion Graham) finishing second the series records an historic first –Hill and King are both members of the British Racing Drivers Club’s elite Rising Stars programmme, and it is the first time the series has seen a 1-2 result for drivers who are part of this mentoring initiative.

Ferrari Driver Academy member Raffaele Marciello harried Dutch driver Hannes van Asseldonk throughout the race and crossed the line in fourth position.

Josh Hill broke the lap record on lap five of fifteen, with a 1:24.493; King then re-set the mark with a 1:24.444 on lap nine – the latter time more than a second under the existing record of 1:24.588 set by defending TRS champion Mitch Evans in 2010.
The second and third races of the third round of the 2012 Toyota Racing Series will be held at Taupo Motorsport Park tomorrow, with the 15-lap “reverse top six” race at 11.00 am NZDST and the feature race, the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy over 20 laps, to start at 2.30 pm NZDST.

images attached -Jordan King (head and shoulders); King in action

TAUPO THURSDAY/FRIDAY 26th / 27th JANUARY 2012

Two test sessions today at the Taupo track in fine warm weather.

My journey here was via the beautiful city of Napier. A lovely place in yet another absolutely beautiful part of our country and yet another picturesque drive over and through some spectacular scenery.

The road, when all the road works are finally done, is one of those roads made for the GT touring cars of old, a 1950s or 60s model ‘Vette with the top down or a new Lexus ISF ‘Red’ edition with the scarf blowing in the breeze, Ray Ban Aviator sunnies on, five on the floor, a loud and ‘rorty’ exhaust sound, and the Beach
Boys on the radio ……or loud opera, whatever turns you on.

All the chaps and the one chapess were very keen to get on track today.

A bit of holiday time in between the Timaru round and the drive up to Taupo seemed to have given them some itchy feet and a renewed vigour to get on track and up to speed as soon as possible.

The ETEC team mates of Josh Hill and Melvin Moh actually clashed on track on turn 1 when Josh tried to overtake and go under him. Unfortunately Melvin returned to the pits with a large tyre roundel on his side pod and Josh was stranded on track.

His car had leaped into the air on contact and it had blown a circuit breaker on landing, cutting all the electrics.

The sessions took the form of a two one hour periods and there were plenty of ‘exploratory’ spins and offs but by and large without damage.

There is always the exception to that and the first was Josh Hill who whacked one of the plastic track marker posts dislodging his front wing.

Melvin Moh also had an off but this was a little more serious. He entered the braking area for the long open turn 10 hairpin at the far end of the circuit when the front left suspension seemed to collapse and he was left with three wheels on his wagon at around 200kph. He spun the car, or the car spun him, and ended up safely stopped in the gravel trap. The breakage may possibly have been the result of the previous contact with Hill but it certainly resulted in a spectacular spin, and right in front of Sam MacNeil, Steve Boyce and me who were at the marshal’s post there.

It said by some in the team that Melvin may well have changed his underwear after the incident!
There were a couple of engine problems that were being addressed overnight but all looked set for the Friday session.

The Taupo events people have some back up happening to the TRS weekend on as well.
Body Art on the shore and the powerboats on the lake and the TRS drivers have some involvement apparently!!

Friday 27th
Weather change again!
Cool, overcast and threatening rain.

The first piece of good news for the day was for me to see in the Autosport magazine that the GP3 series is confirmed to run at the Formula 1 GP at Monaco.

Our TRS graduates Mitch Evans (GP3) and Richie Stanaway (Renault 3.5) are both racing in Formulae that are the backups to the F1 circus in this coming year so it will be great to see them both shine on that iconic track.

If Brendon Hartley can also secure a drive in Renault 3.5 for 2012 as well then it should make for a fascinating weekend.

The first session of testing (2 sessions today of 30 mins each) got underway under ever threatening skies, in fact a light misty rain drifted across the track occasionally.

Spins aplenty again with turns 4 and 5 catching a few drivers out.

No real dramas though.

The session ended with Bonifacio, Cassidy, van Asseldonk and King in the first four places but the top twelve drivers were covered by less than one second.

Just after the session ended the heavy rain came in, the visibility dropped and the wind started blowing.

The drivers had an event or two scheduled for the late afternoon with a jet boat experience being one of them and body art (!) with Jono Lester volunteered to take an active part, being the other.

Not sure if they will happen at this point.

30 minutes before the second session and the wind is blowing hard with a very cold edge to it but the rain has stopped.

The series continues to gain more media coverage than ever before and this morning Barry Thomlinson was on the local More FM radio station with Victor Sendin and Josh Hill. There have also been many reports in the printed media with Eric Thompson leading the charge in the NZ Herald with articles, reports and even video blog stuff on www.nzherald.co.nz

The weather looks as if it may improve so the second practice session has been delayed by 15 minutes as blue sky is on the horizon and getting closer by the minute. Hooray!!!

The Taupo track is more suited to the smaller TRS cars than the larger and more powerful A1GP cars that raced here for two events.

It presents more overtaking possibilities for them and lets the cars really stretch their legs.

A lap of the track is done in around 1 minute 24 seconds and starts across the start / finish line at 160kph in 4th gear and then to 5th at around 190kph before heavy braking for turn 1, taken at 70kph in 2nd.
Then up to 3rd then 4th through turns 3 and 4 reaching 148kph before dropping down the gears again to 2nd and entering the turn 5 at around 80kph.

Accelerating once again through turn 6 and up into 4th gear and a speed of 160kph before another heavy braking for turn 7 in 2nd, then again up to 3rd, 4th, and a speed of 190kph before lifting off and slight braking for the very quick right hander at turn 9 taken at 150kph.

Flat out again on the run through the almost imperceptible turn 10 and getting into 5th gear and reaching 220kph before dropping down the gears to 2nd with heavy braking yet again for the wide hairpin turn 11 taken at 80kph.

Then foot to the floor for the long, long straight, also used as a drag strip, and climbing through the gears to 6th reaching a terminal speed of more than 230kph before, once again, heavy braking and down through the sequential gearbox to 2nd and taking the left, right, left complex of turns 12, 13 and 14 at 100kph, 85kph and 98kph before holding the car close against the start of the pit wall to get across the line and finish the lap.

Once again, sounds easy eh!?

The start of the session has been wisely delayed until 3.15pm to let the blue sky take over from the black rain clouds.

It worked!!

Blue sky, cold wind and sunny.

Spins and offs and damp track drying to dry with the occasional puddle.

The session ended with all of the cars on dry (slick) tyres and the order ended up with Bonifacio leading then Cassidy, Hill, van Asseldonk, Marciello, Leitch and King in the top seven.

The next thing for the drivers today, jet boats and body painting!

The convoy of volunteers has just left the track for the lake and the river.

More on that tomorrow hopefully.

Chris Amon is a very welcome attendee this weekend as he lives just around the lake in Kinloch and is also very involved in not only Toyota but also the TRS series.

He was fulfilling his obligations to his land the other day and mowing his vast acreage with his horrendously large and expensive Walker ride on mower.

As befits any self respecting race driver, especially a Formula 1 driver, Chris takes his mower to the limit in all aspects and the limit was reached when the thing overturned on him. Not literally ON him as he had abandoned ship moments before the thing reached tipping point.

(I guess his years in Italy may well have educated him in the ways of cruise ship captains).
It took him, his wife Tish and the front end loader to get the impressive machine the right way up again.

It just goes to show you are never too old to get yourself in trouble.
In fact it is always a pleasure to see and talk with Chris as his vast experience, vast knowledge of race cars and racing and vast store of stories, which are mostly not for publication, is pure entertainment in itself.
A great man.

OK, that’s it for today….

More later.

Bob

Cassidy swamped pole man Hannes van Asseldonk in Saturday’s 12 lap race to win convincingly, then backed that victory with a well judged win on a drying track in today’s 20-lap feature race for the Timaru Herald Trophy. He then finished the day with a canny third overall in the third race to maintain a championship points lead over the inner of that race, Damon Leitch.

Though van Asseldonk and Brazilian rookie Bruno Bonifacio had the front row of the grid for the feature, Cassidy and Southland’s Damon Leitch were well placed off the second row.

Bonifacio took and held the lead briefly from the start before being overtaken by van Asseldonk, who was pushing his car hard in the opening laps.

Cassidy got the better of Leitch to close in on Bonifacio and van Asseldonk and soon followed van Asseldonk past Bonifacio.

Josh Hill had started off the third row, but went off and was forced into a race-long fight to regain his start position. Chris Vlok went off at the sweeper and lost his front wing.
Three laps later van Asseldonk went off under unrelenting pressure from Cassidy, who then set about putting distance between himself and the Dutch driver.

The race became a test of driving skills as the drivers sought to preserve their soft compound wet tyres on an increasingly dry track. Leader Cassidy was driving off the fast line and in the remaining wet patches of the track to preserve his tyres.

French driver Nathanael Berthon was the only one to have opted for slick tyres at the race start, but found himself slipping behind the field even when the track dried out. Cassidy lapped both Berthon and Sheban Siddiqi in a finely judged and strategic drive to the chequered flag. Though to second behind him came Puerto Rican racer Felix Serralles, scoring his best result of the series to date and stepping up to third in the championship points standings.

After two rounds of the 2012 Toyota Racing Series, despite being outnumbered 3:1 by the internationals, New Zealand drivers fill the first and second places in the championship.

Damon Leitch led the series coming into this round and capped a second in Saturday’s race with third overall in today’s feature race to be second on points. His win in the third race of the day brought him back into contention for the championship, just eleven points behind leader Cassidy’s total of 383. Third for the series on 295 is Puerto Rican racer Felix Serralles, who was pushed down the order by the reverse grid format of the third race but put in a clean and consistent drive to finish 11th and continue accumulating valuable points.

The Timaru Herald Trophy, raced over 20 laps, has been won in TRS by Brent Collins (2005); Ben Harford (2006); Daniel Gaunt (2007); Earl Bamber (2008) Scott Pye (2009) Earl Bamber (2010) and Mitch Evans (2011). Nick Cassidy now gets to add his name to a trophy that was first awarded in 1967.
The 2012 Toyota Racing Series now heads to the resort town of Taupo in the middle of New Zealand’s North Island for the third round of the series next weekend.