North Shore’s Grant Liston has come away from the penultimate round of the Production Racing Series very much in the box seat to take the overall and class D honours after another consistent drive at Manfeild.
The Avis North Shore team chased a handling problem all weekend in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9. Although improvements to the set-up were made over the weekend, a disappointing seventh was all Liston could manage in qualifying.
The opening race saw Liston enter into an early tussle with Logan Childs, elevating the experienced rally driver to sixth. Problems for Grant Aitken and the disqualification of Kevin Varney (underweight) meant that despite still struggling for mid-corner speed, Liston earned fourth place in the opening race.
Further set-up changes failed to cure understeer but left Liston with a more competitive car for race two, which paid dividends when Liston won a race-long battle with the Audi S3 of Simon Sceats by a scant 0.002 of a second for the final spot on the podium.
The third and final reverse grid race saw Liston get squeezed into turn one, surrounding him in slower cars. After this, Liston began an intense battle with the Ford Focus RS of Grant Aitken, who eventually used the greater straight line speed of the Focus to get past the Evo 9, relegating Liston to third, a position he held to the line despite a late challenge from John Rongen, the pair finishing only a tenth of a second apart.
“Obviously we would have preferred to be competing for race wins, but at the end of the day we have a championship to think about,” said Liston. “I really have to thank my crew, Lloyd and John, for their help over the weekend.”
Consistency was the key for Liston as he was rewarded with equal second for the round and has again increased his championship lead, which now sits at 160 points over Grant Aitken, with nearest Class D competitor Logan Childs 10 points further back. Liston now heads to the final round at Taupo on 12-13 March with only a major disaster capable of denying him his first Production Racing Series title.
