Thumbs Up For Peach On NZ's Toughest Circuit

On what can only be considered to be the tightest and one of the toughest circuits on the BNT V8's calendar, new driver for Team SCG Racing Mack Peach received the thumbs up from co-director Gary Jenkins after the weekend's racing at Timaru International Motor Raceway.

"We think he did exceptionally well especially for his first time out in the car and on what is one of the hardest tracks in New Zealand." said Mr Jenkins.

"It's a very tight technical track and if a few things had gone Mack's way his results would have been really good - unfortunately he was taken out a couple of times in the weekend."

"There's not much chance to overtake at Timaru, he definitely wasn't outclassed at the weekend and I think he may surprise himself when he gets down to Invercargill - he's really good and also works well with the crew."

Qualifying well in the first of three sessions on Saturday morning, Peach made it through the first elimination round but after losing half a second off his best pace had to settle for 20th place on the grid for the first race.

Peach made his way up through the field in race one as well as can be expected on the narrow Timaru circuit, keeping pace with a pack of veteran NZV8 drivers in front of him and finally crossing the line in the 16th place.

"It was all good but certainly rough with a bit of bash bash out on the track, in the first race it was all pretty tidy but in the second one I was turned around by a car on turn three."

Peach soon realised the intensity of the present day BNT V8s after being knocked off the circuit by an aggressive driver on Sunday morning leaving him to catch up as best as he could to finish his second race of the tier one season in 20th place.

"At Timaru there's virtually no passing spots you get up behind someone and they just block hard." said Peach.

The final race of the weekend was a reverse grid start and Peach was on the third row in sixth and hoping to stay at the front on the tight, complex circuit.

Unfortunately for the Auckland driver staying at the front in the BNT V8s on a Sunday afternoon reverse grid race can sometimes be akin to a lottery.

At the end of the long straight at Levels Peach looked up into his mirror to see a car coming in at him hard and fast.

"In the last race I started in sixth and got up into fourth when another driver locked all four wheels and just punted me off the end of the straight, it was quite a big one and I was quite lucky not to go off into the wall."

Peach was fortunate to have not made heavy contact with the wall and was able to drive through the sand trap and back on to the track where he brought the car home with no major damage in 17th place.

"It was definitely a learning curve this weekend for sure." he said.

"It's very tight at Timaru and I'm looking forward to Teretonga this weekend where the track is a bit more like Pukekohe."

Mack Peach quickly fitted in with Team SCG Racing and looks forward to moving on to Teretonga Park where in 2000 he set the lap record in the NZV8s as a 17 year old.

"The guys from SCG were wrapped as with the weekend, I managed to bring the car back in fairly straight each time and they were happy as Larry with how I was going although I was a little off the pace my first time out." he said.

This weekend the BNT V8s hit Invercargill's Teretonga Park on Friday the 16th January with qualifying and race one on Saturday and two races on Sunday.