KEY POINTS:
The next week will be hard on the drivers and cars during rounds four and five of the NZV8 championship.
This weekend the action is at Levels Raceway in Timaru before they pack up and head to Teretonga near Invercargill.
As in the past few seasons, it's the
Fords of Kayne Scott and John McIntyre battling it out at the top of the table. Just four points separate the two and Scott has his nose in front. The Holden of Andy Booth, who's having a bit of a resurgence this season, is playing a watching brief behind the top two 113 points back. The gap is not big as there's a maximum of 225 points up for grabs over the three races this weekend.
"After showing such a good turn of speed at what has been our worst track for the last few years [Ruapuna], I'm itching to get to Timaru and Invercargill where I've been on the front row for the last two seasons and capitalise on the improving pace from the car," said Booth.
Although Scott prefers the more open and faster flowing circuits, he's not being put off by the tighter, and some would say, more technical Levels circuit.
"There's nothing new about John [McIntyre] and me heading to Timaru for a fight. We've been battling it out over the past few seasons," said Scott.
"Timaru's a funny track that gets great support from the locals and the car club. I much prefer the likes of Invercargill and Pukekohe, but despite that, we've had a lot of success at Timaru. We've got good car speed and I'll be hoping for a good result."
Since the last round at Ruapuna, McIntyre and his team have gone over his car in fine detail, making sure all is ready for his charge at Scott to regain the championship lead.
"Timaru's been good to us over the past five years and we've won the last two rounds there in a row," said McIntyre. "It's really all about coming out at the end of the weekend with more points than Kayne's [Scott] got. The main idea is to go to Manfeild with more points than Kayne, so we've got to put two good weekends together. We've done a bit of development with the car as it wasn't too good at Ruapuna. We've rebuilt the engine so we'll have a good package going into this weekend."
Former Toyota Racing Series champion Andy Knight has made some changes to his team over the Christmas break, changing cars and some personnel to improve his overall championship standings.
"We don't want to dwell on what wasn't working the way we wanted it to," said Knight.
"We're pleased to have the assistance of experienced V8s campaigner, Mark Petch, and the car Paul Pedersen ran the season before last."
Round two of the TRS fires up today, with the Porsche GT3s, Formula Fords, NZ Production racing, Minis and Super trucks.
Adderley Fong, the rookie driver for the Chinese A1GP team, is joining Scott Pye and Nathan Antunes' TRS team for the weekend. They'll be joined on the grid by two UK drivers, Northern Irishman William Buller and Will Stevens (a young British racer who has already come to the attention of the Honda Formula One team).
Timaru is the first of the three-race international series held within the TRS series championship. The other two rounds are Teretonga and Taupo.