Motorsport: Skaife avoids scrapes in crash-studded round

Mark Skaife on the way to his win at Pukekohe. Picture / Greg Bowker

Mark Skaife went from zero to hero as he won the crash-riddled Pukekohe second round of the Australian V8 Supercar championship yesterday.

The 39-year-old owner-driver of the Holden Racing Team won the two conventional races in the round and was fifth in the controversial reverse-grid race, in which he started almost last of the 31 cars.

The victory moved him level with the legendary Peter Brock with 37 individual round wins in his career. It was a marked contrast to the first round of the championship in Adelaide where he crashed out heavily in both races and earned no points.

"The guys have worked very, very hard," he said. "To have got here with virtually a new car and for it to work so well is a credit to them. This victory is mostly a result of their effort."

Skaife had no problems with the reverse-grid race, which started with an early pileup that saw several cars eliminated and included a high-speed crash involving John Bowe that caused an hour-long interruption while the safety fence was repaired.

Bowe was not hurt but a photographer received a broken leg.

Second for the round was the relatively inexperienced Mark Winterbottom in his first season with Ford Performance Racing.

He was remarkably consistent with fourth in the first race and third in the other two.

Defending series champion Russell Ingall was third for the round in his Stone Brothers Ford and takes the championship lead by one point from Holden's Rick Kelly with another Holden driver, Garth Tander, 37 points further back.

Tander, who won pole for the first race in the top-10 shootout on Saturday, suffered a setback when he was penalised for jumping the start. He came back strongly to win the reverse-grid race and was fourth in the final race.

Greg Murphy had a dreadful weekend. His Holden was badly damaged in a "racing incident" at the start of the first race. The team worked all night so that he could run 15th in the two yesterday.

Of the other Kiwis, Jason Richards barely finished the first race but made the most of a front-row start in the second to finish second. Team Kiwi's Paul Radisich was 20th for the round, Murphy 21st, Fabian Coulthard 26th and Mark Porter 29th.

Angus Fogg wrapped up the New Zealand V8 championship, at least provisionally, by winning the first two races of the weekend in his Ford.

But with Kayne Scott appealing the loss of 150 points for a testing infringement, the championship could yet be decided off the track because Fogg's lead is 137 points. Defending champion Andy Booth was third.

Scott was second in the first two races and was again one place behind when Fogg finished fourth in the reverse-grid third race. That race went to Fogg's Ford teammate Paul Pedersen, the biggest sufferer in the cylinder head penalties that saw John McIntyre lose the championship lead.

Visiting English driver Ben Clucas got his name on the New Zealand Motor Cup alongside such greats as Stirling Moss and Keke Rosberg when he won the second Toyota single-seater race yesterday.

The cup, which for years was awarded to the winner of the New Zealand Grand Prix, has been re-introduced for the Toyotas, and Clucas was a convincing winner from Hamish Cross. The first race on Saturday was won by Aucklander Daniel Gaunt, who had already clinched the championship from Wellingtonian Ben Harford.

Sixteen-year-old St Kentigern College student Shane Van Gisbergen clinched the Formula Ford national title despite not winning a race.

The Porsche GT3s were dominated as usual by Craig Baird and Matt Halliday with each winning a race. The first race was declared after three laps following the high-speed crash that saw Dean Fulford's car hurtle into the catch fence in front of the main stand and topple over into the front row of seats.