Photo: Josh Hill Jason Bargwanna of Australia and Josh Hill of the UK were the big winners in an eventful day at the BNT 200 at Teretonga Park in Invercargill today.
Bargwanna took first blood in the opening race of Round 3 in the BNT V8 Championship as he held off the surprise package of qualifying, Martin Short of Hamilton who started from pole. Nick Ross of Cambridge was third with leading championship contenders Tim Edgell and Angus Fogg fourth and fifth respectively. Fogg had a problem in his top ten shoot out lap and had started from the back of the field.
Hill won an incident packed Toyota Racing Series contest from local star Damon Leitch and another kiwi, Jono Lester, in a star studded field. There were many incidents in the race and several of the international stars failed to finish including pole position man Lucas Auer of Austria and Ferrari Academy star Raffaele Marciello. Leitch had the local crowd excited as he recovered from a difficult qualifying session to race from eleventh on the grid to second.
Mike 'Buzz' Lightfoot of Auckland broke through for his first ever win in the UDC V8 Ute Championship race ahead of Dave 'The Boss' Stewart of Wellington and championship leader Andrew 'DJ48' Waite of Auckland.
Defending champion Andre Heimgartner of Dannemora, Auckland East won the Formula Ford race although another of the Leitch brothers, Brendon, challenged hard early on and actually led the race briefly. However the Invercargill driver went off the circuit and was eventually classified seventh. Henry Thomas-Kircher of Christchurch and Michael Scott of Te Puke completed the podium.
Other winners on the opening day of competition were Gary Duncan of Temuka who took victory in the Production GT Class in his Mitsubishi EVO from fellow South Cantabrian Matt Dunn and Robert Ralston of Invercargill while Geoff Short of Hamilton took his Juno to victory in the Sports GT Class from local drivers Andrew Cundall (Toyota Levin) and Lawrence Knowler (Brennan Camaro).
Racing resumes at 9.20am tomorrow.
