Joblin Celebrates on the Podium

The opening round of the New Zealand Production Racing Series went well for Hamilton racer Mark Joblin at the weekend as he entered his third season in Motorsport New Zealand's Tier One Summer Series.

A new rearrangement of racing classes within the series currently has Joblin's Classic Cover Insurance Skyline 350GT flying solo in the two wheel drive, normally aspirated, over two litre class.

However in each of the three races Joblin set new lap records for the class as his pace crept up over the weekend.

"Because we had geared up for this and were ready to go, we had a good reliable car that never missed a beat and consequently we set the new class lap record in race 1, broke it in race 2 and broke it again in race 3." he said.

Although racing closely against Peter Hills in a Class B car and swapping the lead until the demise of the Honda Integra three laps from the end of race two, Joblin officially went on to claim three class wins and overall class honours in the Nissan earning himself a place in the podium celebrations.

"Nevertheless, 3 class wins from 3 races is a totally new experience for this team and so was the champagne on the podium!" he said.

With a hat trick of race wins Joblin took to the podium joining the other drivers in a race to open their bottles and douse each other with champagne.

"I enjoyed the Formula 1 styled spray session on the podium and used my height advantage to good effect when emptying half a bottle of bubbles down the back of Class B winner, Steve Taylor's race suit! He has warned me however 'you'll keep!' he said." laughed Joblin.

"There are more cars out there which are eligible for the series and we are hoping to encourage some of those to enter in the upcoming rounds." says Joblin who is president of the New Zealand Production Racing Series.

At the opening round there were a total of 17 cars in the series made up of classes including B, C, D, E and the Mini Challenge which brought an interesting and entertaining mix of racing styles and lap speeds.

At the weekend the field included race cars from manufacturers including Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Honda, Mazda and BMW's Mini Cooper.

This is the second season Joblin has raced the Classic Cover Insurance Skyline 350GT which he had built by Ron Koopman and Hairy Dog Race Cars.

But this has been the first time he has raced the car at Pukekohe Park Raceway with David Silverton stepping in last season as substitute driver when the series visited the historical circuit twice for the 2008-9 championship.

The crew from Joblin's Marlin Motorsport Team are better known as "Dad's Army" and the ones who keep the driver and car race ready; they are Phil Norquay, Ian Howarth and Stu Lindsay.

Last season Joblin finished fourth in class and hopes to improve on that after missing two of the six rounds.

Round two will be held in two weeks at Powerbuilt International Raceway, Ruapuna over the 28-29th November before restarting after Christmas mid January 2010 at Invercargill's Teretonga Park.