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MCNEE FIGHTS BACK IN SECOND RACE

Sunday 28 September 2014, 9:51PM

By Mark Baker

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JAMIE MCNEE
JAMIE MCNEE Credit: Bruce Jenkins/Toyota Racing New Zealand

Matt Gibson took a clean flag to flag win in the first race of the 2014-2015 Toyota Finance 86 Championship, but defending champion Jamie McNee bounced back this morning to win the second eight lap race.
Rookie Cory Holmes had pole thanks to the category’s marble-draw partial reverse grid rule, but was unable to get a clean start, bogging on the line with wheelspin. Callum Quin, alongside him at the start, swept his Spark/Spotify car into an early lead and Holmes was swamped into the first corner, the chasing pack going in four wide.
Holmes later in the lap spun and resumed ninth, while the man on a charge was defending champion Jamie McNee of Wellington.
In the space of two laps he overtook four cars to challenge Quin for the lead. Overtaking when Quin missed a gear, McNee was never headed. Matt Gibson, who won the first race, came through the field from a start place of P6 and took a hard-fought third place, while Tom Alexander held fourth but was unable to make an impression on the flying Gibson.
Cory Holmes managed to overtake Bruce Thomlinson to be eighth at the finish.
The third and final race of the opening weekend takes place this afternoon at 2:05 pm New Zealand daylight Saving Time (NZDST).