Thunder and muscle at Teretonga Park

Wellington driver Alex Little made it a three-peat when he took the points win at Round 3 of the NZ Super Truck Championship at Teretonga Park in Invercargill this weekend. The trucks were part of Southern Thunder presented by Downer, the final race meeting of the season at the circuit.

Little had twice previously won the Teretonga round and he added another when he accumulated results of sixth, first and third in his Freightliner 3 Series across the three points scoring races. David West of Pukekohe finished second overall in his Freightliner Argosy with Tony Brand of Rangiora third in a KM Bedford. Ken Rowe of Hamilton won the Super Truck Flying Farewell in his Volvo.

Five-time New Zealand champion and championship leader coming into the round, Troy Wheeler of Hicks Bay, had a troubled weekend breaking a driveshaft in testing and missing qualifying before bouncing back to win the opening race. He followed that with a second on Sunday but his weekend ended at that point.

The Mobil 1 Mainland Muscle Cars provided great racing and at the conclusion of it all John Hepburn of Timaru in a Holden Monaro took the top step of the podium ahead of Steve Scoles of Dunedin (Chev Camaro) and Rob Lewis of Rangiora in another Monaro. Invercargill driver Brendan Mason broke the lap record in his Chev Camaro in a charge through the field to third place on Sunday morning leaving the new mark at 1 minute 01.185 seconds. Mason, Scoles, Lewis and Paul Boden of Porirua in another Camaro were the race winners across the weekend.

Invercargill drivers John Smolenski and Garry Price in Ford Falcon’s plus Cliff Bruning of Nelson in an EH Holden were the winners in the three Pre 65 Saloon races. Smolenski’s win, allied to his other results of third and fourth, secured the overall win from Christchurch driver Corey Ross in a Mustang and Gary Shaw of Dunedin in another Falcon.

Liam MacDonald of Invercargill carried on his winning way in the Noel McIntyre Drainage Club Saloons taking the weekend from fellow Falcon drivers Bradley Rule of Queenstown and Kevin Underwood of Invercargill. In the class race MacDonald took out Class 4, while other winners were Invercargill drivers Andrew Lawrie (Mitsubishi Mirage), Class 3, Jeremy Dawson (Toyota Starlet), Class 2 and Todd Blackmun (Vauxhall Chevette), Class 1.

Simon Baker of Wellington took out the Mazda Racing Series with two wins and a second with Matt Horne of Masterton second and Cantabrian Matt Dodd third.

Queenstown driver Michael Hall won the annual A1 Auto Services 1 Hour Race in his VW Golf GTi after fastest qualifier Jordan Michels struck problems as did early leader Bruce Davidson of Alexandra in his Corvette. Scott Milne of Invercargill brought his BMW Mini home second while father and son combination Boyd and Harry Wilson were third despite a quick spin late in the race after a brief shower left the track wet for the second half of the race. Davidson set a new race lap record of 1.02.330 during the race.