Auckland’s Grant Liston has made a winning start to his Production Racing Series campaign, winning the opening round, the Fujitsu 200, held at Pukekohe Park Raceway.
Although better known for his exploits on gravel behind the wheel of a rally car, Liston has enjoyed success in circuit racing including top ten finishes at the Wellington Street race, class wins in the B&H Saloon car series and an outright win in the Pukekohe 6 hour race.
Liston, a two-wheel drive rallying stalwart, finally had the opportunity to compete in one of the turbo-charged four-wheel drive cars that now dominate gravel rallying, but ironically it was a race track on which he made his debut.
On Friday’s open practice, Liston set the pace in the AVIS NORTH SHORE Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 that he also shared with car owner Grant Aitken to win the production class at the recent Altherm 1000 endurance race.
Fastest in qualifying by a mere .026 of a second meant that Liston started the first race of the weekend off pole position, a race that Liston would go on to win after a race-long battle with the Evo 10 of John Rongen, although having to defend meant that Liston could only set the second fastest lap of the race.
As a consequence of the second fastest lap time, Liston started second for the second race of the weekend, but a passing move on the opening lap meant he was able to take another race win.
The reverse grid race three saw Liston start from the back and aiming for a clean-sweep, made the best possible start, passing half of the 18 car field on the opening lap.
However half way through the second lap, Liston made contact with the Mini of Ben Dallas and was left pointing towards the armco barrier in fourth gear. Calling on all his rallying experience, Liston managed to gather the car up with not even a scratch on it while also being lucky not to get hit by any of the other passing cars.
Having fallen to the back of the field and losing about 10 seconds, Liston charged through the field and in the remaining 10 laps, worked his way back into second place, a result which secured him the round win and consequently the championship lead after the opening round, with an eight point lead over Rongen.
Liston is now looking forward to round two, which will run at Ruapuna on November 26-28.
