Auckland driver Wayne Conder took his Chev Camaro to victory this afternoon in the first of three Schaeffer Oil N.Z. Super Sedan Series races scheduled for Pukekohe Park Raceway this weekend. Conder, a relative newcomer to the series after many years of kart racing, steered his Chev Camaro to win an action packed race of eight laps around the 2.84 kilometre South Auckland circuit. In doing so the 41-year-old self employed builder became the fifth different winner of the season in just the seventh race of the series.
Another Auckland driver, George Sheweiry, was second today in his Camaro while Orewa driver Mike Parsons was third in his Ford Falcon V8. Roger Williams in an Oldsmobile Aurora and Peter Stewart of Te Puke in a Cortina Chev rounded out the top five.
The race was a handicap event with the fastest cars starting from the back but the pacesetters from qualifying found it very difficult to make up their time deficit. Invercargill driver Glen Brazier had qualified his Chev Corvette on pole position earlier in the day ahead of championship leader Dayne Running of Drury and Tauranga's Andy Greenslade. Running fared the best of the trio by making his way through the traffic to sixth place at the end. Brazier, who set the fastest lap of the race, took the chequered flag two places behind his championship rival while Greenslade could only bring his Mustang into sixteenth position, one spot behind another of the fast men, fellow Tauranga competitor and defending series champion Grant Brennan.
The race provided some excellent action in the hot conditions with two Auckland drivers featuring in some of the races most memorable incidents. Greg Gillespie gave the crowd some excitement as he had a big moment in front of the grandstand at the fast Pukekohe sweeper, just managing to keep his Scarab V8 off the unforgiving guardrail while Mark Heimgartner had a big spin in the esses in his Brennan Camaro. Heimgartner was fortunate not to be hit by other cars in the heavy traffic. Both Gillespie and Heimgartner had posted extremely good times in qualifying earlier.
Tomorrow morning the Schaeffer Oil N.Z. Super Sedan Series competitors fight out a rolling start scratch race while tomorrow afternoon they face another handicap event to round out Round 3 of their 2007/2008 series.
Major sponsor of the series, Schaeffer Oil, has primary markets in the fields of earthmoving, trucking and agriculture and they view this series as the perfect test environment for their high performance racing products.
QUALIFYING
1st - Glen Brazier (Invercargill) - Chev Corvette
2nd - Dayne Running (Drury) - Chev Camaro
3rd - Andy Greenslade (Tauranga) - Ford Mustang Cobra
RACE 1 - HANDICAP START (8 LAPS)
1st - Wayne Conder (Auckland) - Chev Camaro
2nd - George Sheweiry (Auckland) - Chev Camaro
3rd - Mike Parsons (Orewa) - Ford Falcon V8
