An exuberant final race display by Audi S3 Sportback driver Simon Sceats saw Audi of New Zealand's 2010/11 New Zealand Production Racing Championship campaign end on a high note at the Battery Town 200 motor racing meeting at Taupo over the weekend.
Defending series champion Sceats was at his aggressive best in the full reverse grid 10-lap season-finale, making up nine places on the first lap before grabbing the lead from MINI Cooper driver James Kirkpatrick as the pair crossed the start-finish line for the first time.
Though he was eventually caught and passed by round winner and 2010/11 season runner-up Logan Childs, Sceats remained in touch until the chequered flag came out, crossing the finish line in second place and beating the main bunch - which consisted of Class C winner Grant Aitken in a Ford Focus, round runner-up Kevin Varney in a Subaru WRX and 2010/11 series champion Grant Liston driving a Mitsubishi Evo 9 - by almost 11 seconds.
With fourth place finishes in the other two races Sceats and the Audi Dealer Network/Mondiale-backed S3 Sportback ended the weekend - and the 2010/11 season - third in class and fourth overall; quite some achievement for a car and driver alike, and one which Audi of New Zealand General Manager Dane Fisher says everyone involved in the locally conceived, developed and managed, International Motorsport-run project should be proud of.
"We're a small team but we're a good team and everyone involved is involved for the right reasons."
"Motorsport is an absolutely integral part of Audi's DNA but up until now we haven't really been able to showcase it here in New Zealand. The Production Racing category has enabled us to do that and the beauty of it is that all the cars are different, and all have their strengths and their weaknesses."
By choosing to race-prepare a standard production road car Fisher admits that it was always going to be a journey into the unknown, particularly in the S3 Sportback's debut season. But that, he says, was also part of the attraction.
"The S3 Sportback is a car you can buy and use everyday, not a limited edition race-prepared model, so the technology we are showcasing on the track - the quattro all-wheel-drive system, the S tronic double clutch gearbox and features like launch control - is the very same technology which makes an Audi such an involving and rewarding car to drive on the road."
Having won the 2009/10 New Zealand Production Racing Championship title, the car's driver, Simon Sceats, did not take the decision to join the Audi team lightly.
But like Fisher, he says the prospect of taking a car off the showroom floor and turning it into a race winner was too good to resist.
"That, at the end of the day, was it and I certainly have enjoyed the challenge of developing the car through the season. We've had our ups and downs but through it all the car has been 100% reliable and to regularly beat cars which are fully developed and have been running in the series for four or five years now is definitely quite an achievement, particularly with the calibre of the drivers and teams involved. "
Motor racing can, of course, be a cruel mistress, but as Dane Fisher says, there are valuable lessons in it for everyone.
"We're a small, family-owned company primarily competing against large national sales companies, yet for the past four years we've been number one in the luxury car sector. We've got a great product, obviously, but we've also got a great team, a team which brings an incredible amount of passion, agility and flexibility to everything we do.
"It's that approach which we've brought to the New Zealand Production Racing Championship and that approach that has helped us, if you like, punch well above our weight on the track."
Fisher also has a message for race fans keen to see more of the sleek, silver S3 Sportback.
"As far as we are concerned the journey has only just begun. We're very happy with the progress we have made so far but in terms of our overall goal for the project the job has yet to be done!"
