Home victory for Triple X

Today’s opening Porsche GT3 race at the Timaru circuit has been a home town victory for Triple X Motorsport engineer Peter Sprague with driver David Reynolds taking a comfortable victory in the afternoon 12-lap race.

A lights to flag victory by Melbourne’s Reynolds in the Placemakers – Hampsta – Porsche 997, beat home the second Triple X Porsche of Queensland based Craig Baird (Barrons RV Taupo ZM), with third going to Triple X recruit Daniel Gaunt (Beef and Lamp – Radio Sport – Trinity Media Group – Porsche 997).

The leading pair qualified at the front row of the grid for the afternoon race – the first of three in the third round of the 2008/09 championship season.

Facing dreary conditions, Reynolds said his first victory of the season wasn’t hampered by the light rain that began to fall during the early stages of the race: “…it wasn’t enough to affect the cars performance and those first three laps was where I got enough of a gap to win the race by a good margin.” Reynolds finished fractionally over one second ahead of team-mate Baird.

Paying tribute to the hometown experience imposed by the engineer on his Placemakers – Hampsta car, Reynolds said he was ecstatic to have taken the win: “Peter Sprague and I have been working closer together to get the performance of the car fine tuned and that’s what won me the race. Since the first lap of practise I knew my car was good and my mindset was very good for the weekend – I was on it straight away. It was very good from the first three laps of the race and that’s where I got a decent enough gap to win the race by a good margin.”

A safety car incident in the first-quarter of the race came after a number of cars tangled in a minor concertina, with Sydney’s Rodney Forbes (Hampsta - MPD Dairy Products – Porsche 997) running up the back of another car. The impact punctured his radiator forcing him to later retire.

Rookie Courtney Letica (Altherm - Porsche 997) finished in sixth place to be the fourth team car home, having started from 11th behind team principal Shane McKillen, (VnC Cocktails – Porsche 997) who finished in seventh place.

Tomorrow’s final two races around the 2.4km Timaru circuit include a second 12-lap race, held in the morning, with a 16-lap afternoon race where the top-six leaders are reversed in start order.

Ends.

Race results: Southern 200 - Timaru 10th January 2009 - Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge

Race one (12 laps).

1 David Reynolds (Melbourne) – Triple X Motorsport 15m50.850s
2 Craig Baird (Queensland) – Triple X Motorsport +1.061s
3 Daniel Gaunt (Auckland) – Triple X Motorsport +1.569s
4 Anthony Pedersen (Palmerston North) +2.580s
5 Jody Vincent (Auckland) +2.941s
6 Courtney Letica (Auckland) – Triple X Motorsport +5.490s
7 Shane McKillen (Auckland) – Triple X Motorsport +7.369s