Queenstown’s Grant Aitken has completed one of his best weekends ever in Motorsport, not only winning the South Island Endurance Series in the Lone Star Porsche GT3, but also taking out the class win in the Production Series in his new Focus RS.
The South Island Endurance series began at Timaru two months ago after both the first and second rounds at Ruapuna and Teretonga being cancelled due to the earthquake and snow respectively. Aitken and co-driver and car owner Allan Dippie won the first round at Timaru, and needed only a fourth place finish at the Ruapuna round to clinch the series. The Lone Star Porsche performed faultlessly throughout the series, running for both three hour races without missing a beat.
The South Island Endurance series attracts a wide variety of cars not often seen on any racetrack at one time. Over the years it has become very competitive with faster and more exotic cars turning up.
“You need a little bit of luck on your side for a good finish and the Porsche’s strength is that its fast and consistent and reliable,” commented Dippie.
“Grant did a great job, first time out in a GT3 Cup car, and what a superb result“.
In the NZ Production Series, the brand new Focus RS has now finished six races this season, with class wins in four of the six.
“What a great car,” said Aitken, “we haven’t even had time to put in a full track test day since the car was built, so the car is pretty damn impressive straight out of the box”.
The car has captured the attention of spectators and competitors since its first appearance at Pukekohe, with its impressive straight line performance and magnificent sound from the turbo five cylinder Duratec engine.
Aitken is the direct importer of the Focus RS from the UK, and has a limited number of these supercars available for sale through NZNEW.co.nz
The Focus RS is not that far off the pace of the four wheel drive Evo’s, and considering it is front wheel drive, the technology development for this new generation of car is significant.
"Other than the exit speed out of the slower corners, the RS pretty much matches the Evos everywhere else," said Aitken.
To cap the weekend, Grant Liston drove aitken's older model Mitsubishi Evo 9 to a “D” category class win in the Production Racing Series round at Ruapuna.
The series now moves on to Teretonga on the 14th Jan 2010.
