Motorsport: Complaint blow for V8 leader

Kayne Scott leads the V8 championship with 1020 points from Angus Fogg (Ford) on 986.

Another cloud has been cast over the New Zealand V8 championship after a complaint that the points leader, Kayne Scott, infringed testing rules last Saturday by driving another competitor's car at Pukekohe.

Scott, who races a Holden for Mark Petch Motorsport, inherited the championship lead when Ford driver John McIntyre lost all his points from the last two rounds for running an allegedly non-conforming cylinder head.

The rules state that no driver can test another competitor's car. Scott did six laps in Timaru rookie Brent Collins' car as part of a training session for his teammate.

A complaint was laid by a rival team and a stewards' hearing was to consider the matter. McIntyre and fellow Ford driver Paul Pedersen were also due to have their appeals against the cylinder head rulings heard by a motorsport court of appeal.

Mark Petch said that earlier in the season the controlling authorities had approved the idea of Scott tutoring Collins at Pukekohe.

Before leaving for the track he had sought permission for Scott to drive the car from the series co-ordinator, Dave Slater, who had checked with event director Graeme Robertson.

"Kayne did six laps and we used that data to help Brent cut his lap time by 1 seconds," said Petch yesterday.

"We never had any intention of testing Kayne. If we had, we could easily have taken both cars out there."

McIntyre, the championship leader with only the Pukekohe round to go, was relegated to eighth and out of contention for the title after Robertson ruled that the cylinder head he used at Manfeild and Taupo did not comply with the regulations.

The Auckland Ford driver lost all his points from those meetings plus an extra 20, was fined $400 and his licence was endorsed until May 12.

Pedersen, from Rotorua, suffered an even greater setback at the hearing in Auckland, losing all his points from four meetings, plus the same 20-point penalty, was fined $400 and had his licence endorsed. He slipped from sixth to 32nd.

The New Zealand V8s will have two 30-minute testing sessions at Pukekohe today, a qualifying session and one 10-lap race tomorrow and two 18-lap races on Sunday.

Scott leads the championship with 1020 points from Angus Fogg (Ford) on 986 and defending champion Andy Booth (Holden) on 855.