Damage Control Necessary but McLennan Ready to Pounce

A tough round for driver Simon McLennan at Invercargill's Teretonga Park at the weekend left the team employing some damage control so as to not lose more ground than necessary in the New Zealand Mini Championship.

With McLennan leading the championship before the weekend, Taupo's Craig Innes was able to creep ahead of him and into first place after some mechanical issues kept the 21 year old off the pace throughout the meeting.

McLennan drove the weekend conservatively in order to stay in touch with the championship lead and although not competitive managed to secure a podium for the round.

"Well it all started really when our mechanic Al went to pick up the car from Christchurch and the gearbox had not turned up and therefore was not in the car - after that we just seemed to keep running into problems." said McLennan.

Al Manila, the backbone of the WMS Mini Team and on loan for the weekend, took control of the situation and had the car delivered in the nick of time to the Invercargill circuit.

"We had the services of Big Al for the weekend which was awesome, he is such a nice guy and so good at what he does and a super hard worker - he did such a good job for us for which we were very grateful." said McLennan.

"We managed to get out on the track for Friday morning's practice but we didn't really feel well prepared and felt a bit on the back foot." he said.

"We had never been at the track before and were struggling with set up and other gremlins in the car so were constantly playing catch up and chasing our tails."

Notwithstanding the problems Simon McLennan knew his championship lead was on the line and Craig Innes was looking strong on the southernmost circuit.

The name of the game was to be as competitive as possible and take as many points home from the weekend as he could.

At the end of the meeting McLennan was relieved to find he had accumulated the points needed for third place overall for the round.

"It was a matter of survival really, I didn't have the pace needed to finish in third but I just tried to cling on to the bunch and get the points I could."

"I had to think in terms of minimising the damage so I took it easy and made sure I didn't spin out or put the car onto the roof or into a fence."

"At the end of the day I knew that if finished in third the gap would be just 21 points and that could be the difference between a good race for me and a bad one for Craig in one of the next rounds."

"Craig's weekend was pretty much flawless and he certainly deserved the win."

Watch out however for the Wellington driver when he heads to his home circuit of Manfeild for the penultimate round of the New Zealand Mini Challenge in February where he vows to come on strong.

"We can't wait to get to Manfeild which is my home track really, there are going to be more cars on the grid apparently and I will have lots of friends and family coming up because it's only an hour and a half or so from Wellington."

"It's getting down to the nitty gritty of it all now and I'm not going to sit back - I'm not really happy unless I'm winning so I'm not going to take the conservative approach - after such a good round at Ruapuna I feel that's the benchmark for us now."

"It's going to be exciting for me, I like the track and have done quite a bit of karting there in the past and I'm keen to get back out there and take this championship down to the wire if need be." concluded McLennan.

The sixth round at Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding is held over the weekend of February 27th to the 1st of March.

The final round of the championship will follow later in the month at Pukekohe Park Raceway on the 20th to 22nd.