Broughan sets the Nexen Tyre Nz Mazda Racing Series pace

Arthur Broughan of Tuamarina near Blenheim showed his undoubted speed on the opening day of the first round of Nexen Tyre NZ Mazda Racing North Island Series at the OctoberFAST event at Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon in Feilding on Saturday.

Broughan who is only contesting the early rounds of the North and South Island Series this year continued his good from last weekend’s South Island opener by taking pole position in qualifying, just a touch under the official lap record with a time of 1 minute 17.604 seconds. Stuart Lawton of Paraparaumu was second fastest, .685 of a second behind, with Sam Dashfield of Auckland, returning 2022/2023 champion Rex Edwards of Tauranga, Karl Gaines of Auckland and the other South Islander in the field Mac Templeton of Prebbleton next. Aucklanders Callum Pratt, Mark Oudney, Elton Wichman and Steve Brown completed the top ten. New Plymouth teenager Page Macey qualified well in her first outing in the series while Auckland’s Leo Bult struggled with a solenoid problem. Phil Clemas of Auckland was disqualified and dropped to the back of the twenty-car grid when his car was found to be underweight.

Today’s first race over ten laps later in the day was a beauty with plenty of good racing. The start was very clean considering the competitiveness of the field although Broughan didn’t get the best of it from pole and dropped to third leaving Lawton, who in contrast made a blinder of a start, to lead Edwards with Broughan in third.

Despite his tardy start youngster Broughan showed great patience as he bided his time, climbing to second on lap seven of the race and then taking the lead a lap later.

He opened a gap of 1.1 seconds to Lawton on the remaining laps as he took the chequered flag ahead of the Paraparaumu driver with Edwards crossing the line third but a 5 second penalty for weaving just prior to the start dropped him to seventh.

Templeton, who drove a great race, and Dashfield had a coming together through the esses near the end of the race. Templeton recovered to pick up third after the penalty was applied to Edwards while Dashfield unfortunately could not continue. Karl Gaines was classified fourth followed by Mark Oudney and Callum Pratt. Edwards slotted into seventh with Brown, Lance Gerlach and Wichman completing the top ten.

Tomorrow the Nexen Tyre Mazda Racing Series competitors will have a top ten reverse grid race over 12 laps followed by a 10-lap finale on Sunday afternoon.

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