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NELSON DRIVERS TAKE CLEAN SWEEP AT OFFROAD CHAMPIONSHIP ENDURO

Wednesday 3 September 2014, 9:53PM

By Mark Baker

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Nevil Basalaj wins at Nelson
Nevil Basalaj wins at Nelson Credit: Veritas Communications

Basalaj wins! A month after he was third overall in the Total Lubricants New Zealand Endurance Championship, Nevil Basalaj has taken a hard-fought home town victory at the Nelson round of the national championships.
He headed a Nelson 1-2-3 in the 2014 Nelson Ruff’n’Tuff 250, with Ashley Kelly finishing second and Greg Winn third.  Basalaj battled all race long with Kelly, and looked to have lost the race when forced to pit for fuel, but brought his Jimco Chev two-seater home for the win well ahead of Kelly.
The 250 km one-day enduro was the final chance for southern racers to accumulate championship points before the final round, to be held at Christchurch in October. The course in the hilly Dovedale forest block was almost identical to last month’s New Zealand Endurance Championship.
Qualifying saw the race take on a bright yellow hue, with the Hydraulink Cougar Evo of Kelly taking pole and Cam Stratford in Kelly’s older Nissan SR20-engined car alongside him. Christchurch’s Wayne Moriarty, rated a chance for outright victory, instead found himself putting his car on the trailer after an off in qualifying tore the left front wheel almost completely off his Euroblast Cougar Toyota.
The UTV class, hailed as the coming sensation in the sport, filled the next three places in the two-wide grid, championship points leader Roger McKay of Winton third fastest ahead of Mike Holmes and Grant Dickson. Basalaj had the Jimco in sixth position with a time four seconds adrift of the motivated Kelly.
Off the start, Kelly and Stratford made the running, the 31-strong field throwing  a thick plume of dust in the air on the fast logging roads that lead away from the pits.
Stratford’s race ended with a blown transmission after just one lap of the 42 km course.
Basalaj moved up and managed to edge past the Polaris racers, then set off after Kelly. Likewise local racer Greg Winn had pushed his tough RV Magnum Toyota up to challenge and then overtake the top UTVs.
The see-saw battle for the lead was pushing both Nelson class one racers to the limit. Kelly half-spun and recovered, attacking Basalaj’s lead in a magnificent charge. Basalaj, meanwhile, had to concede the lead and pit for a ‘splash and dash’ fuel top-up two laps from home. The big Chev V6 in his Jimco could not complete the 250 km on the contents of its 167 litre fuel tank, while Kelly’s Cougar Evo has been designed to run more than 250 km on a tank with little risk of running dry.
On that fourth lap the complexion of the race changed. Basalaj sped up the hill to the start-finish area and the pits, sliding the massive Jimco through the cambered corners aiming to eke out precious seconds ahead of Kelly. He entered the pits to add fuel as Kelly started up the hill and it was Kelly who swept past and into the lead, the Cougar Evo throwing a thick cloud of white duct into the air as he headed back down the logging highway into the forest. Basalaj had missed the exit and lost the lead by a matter of ten seconds and was now having to race in Kelly’s dust.
Another lap and the race would be as good as won – but not for Kelly. After a stirring drive, the Nelson racer disappeared from the leader board with a broken steering arm, almost literally in sight of home. Instead, it was the race-built V6 that echoed up through the valleys as Basalaj brought the big car to the chequered flag.
Kelly repaired his car and brought it slowly over the line to the finish to claim second place, while Greg Winn had not put a wheel out of place through the entire distance and claimed a well-deserved third. All three top placings were Nelson drivers, Vinnie Harvey of Christchurch the first visitor home in fourth overall.
Steven Boyd won class two for production four wheel drives and was ninth overall in his giant-killing Suzuki; Owen Chang was tenth overall and won class 8 for unlimited race trucks.
Carl Gardner was seventh overall and won class three for race cars with engines up to 1650cc.
Graham Fleming was 12th overall and won class five for race cars with engines up to 1.3 litres.
New racer Tim George was the first in the popular UTV class, fifth overall.
In the Kiwitruck youth category, which runs on a shorter version of the main track, Brooke Storer beat her sister Jorja.

Top ten finishers, 2014 Ruff’n’Tuff 250 at Nelson:
Nevil Basalaj, Nelson, 1
Ashley Kelly, Nelson, 2
Greg Winn, Nelson, 3
Vinnie Harvey, Christchurch, 4
Tim George, 5
Bob Uttridge, 6
Carl Gardner, Dunedin, 7
Roger McKay, Winton, 8
Steven Boyd, Christchurch, 9
Owen Chang, Christchurch, 10