Motorsport: McIntyre delivers thrills and spills at V8s

Craig Baird gives it the gas during the NZV8s. Photo / Dean Purcell

The six-round New Zealand Premier Race championships roared into action at Pukekohe over the weekend and John McIntyre's early dominance in the NZV8s came unstuck midway through the third and last race.

After winning the first two races, McIntyre slid into the wall coming over Ford Mountain, ending his chance of coming away with a round win. This opened the door for Angus Fogg to take the overall win from defending champion Craig Baird, Tim Edgell and an unimpressed McIntyre.

"I watched Johnny [McIntyre] do it for many years with a softly, softly approach and it seems to work," said Fogg. "We didn't quite have the car in the first two races and blew a gearbox in qualifying. But you've just got to consolidate your points and not give up and keep chipping away. It's great to be in the lead this early in the championship."

When the lights went out for race one, Edgell took off like a scalded cat and led the field by a healthy margin into the first turn. McIntyre bided his time and soon forced Edgell into an error and roared past to take the lead.

The race soon settled down with McIntyre leading Edgell, Baird, Paul Manuell and Fogg home. McIntyre wasn't going to be caught with his pants down a second time and held his line in the drag race to the first corner in race two to keep Edgell on the outside with Baird tucked neatly in behind.

As McIntyre took control of the race again, third-placed Baird began to size up Edgell and it wasn't long before the master put one on the apprentice and snuck underneath him. As McIntyre pulled a little breathing space, Baird, Edgell and Fogg went toe-to-toe, without one of them getting the upper hand, and finished in that order.

Normally the reverse grid third race provides all the drama but this time it was pretty much incident free. Former two-time championship winner Andy Booth showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the field and romped away to a win to salvage something from a less than a successful weekend points-wise.

McIntyre wasn't so lucky, making contact with one car while attempting to pass another driver. "Are we the entertainment team or what?" said a disappointed McIntyre. "We dominated the weekend no doubt about it. Everything was going okay in the reverse grid and then you just have guys in front of you who just don't know when to give their position up and end up stopping in the middle of the corner."

Six-time Porsche GT3 champion Baird didn't have it all his own way this weekend. A puncture in race one, a win in race two and a ninth in race three doesn't constitute a good weekend for the domiciled Queenslander. Daniel Gaunt took the round win from Jonny Reid and Mitch Cunningham.

Defending V8 Ute champion Chris Pither also had a tough weekend, spending his weekend chasing the round winner Cain Lobb all day.

Matt Williams narrowly beat Andre Heimgartner to the bragging rights in the Formula First class and Mike Turley was the best Suzuki Swift driver over the weekend.