Whittaker defeats Chester to win One Hour

Porsche ace Matt Whittaker won the opening one-hour race of the ENEOS North Island Endurance Series in his last-gen Porsche 991, overcoming a solid challenge from Nick Chester’s monster Holden Commodore VX to take honours in the first round of this year’s championship at the Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park, Taupo.

It was advantage Chester in qualifying with the iconic Holden blasting round in an impressive 1.28.379 to eclipse Whittaker in his new charge by nine tenths of a second. At the start, however, and with both cars on full tanks, it was Whittaker and the red Porsche who took the initiative from the rolling start at turn one and led out of the corner after a brave lunge down the inside by Whittaker.

Chester was far from ready to give up however and having harried Whittaker for the entire first lap, he managed to muscle his way past don the straight after the duo had fought out the turn 11 sweeper side by side. From there Chester established a narrow margin before pitting for his compulsory pit stop, which allowed Whittaker to grab the lead back.

As the race entered its final few minutes, Whittaker was one of the last to pit, and with a great pit stop emerged from the pit lane still some seven seconds to the good ahead of Chester. The fight went all the way down to the flag, but try as he might and with traffic a constant challenge, Chester had to settle for second just five seconds away from winner Whittaker.

“I’m happy, very happy, but by we won that one by the skin of our teeth I think,” said Whittaker after the race.  “We almost had a massive crash halfway through the race, and I’m pretty keen to go back and look at the video how we managed to save it. The car was a bit of a handful actually. I had a lot of understeer. We probably didn’t get the right set up for the race but we thought we’d try and tune it so it had plenty of rear grip, but it ended up being the front that was an issue.

“But it was a great battle. That thing is a beast and Nick is a great driver. It’s great to tussle with someone who has a great awareness of their surroundings. It was a lot of fun.”

An impressive third was Andy Duffin making his New Zealand endurance racing debut in his familiar flame-spitting triple rotor Mazda RX7, while Simon McLennan was fourth, having kept Duffin in sight for much of the early part of the race. Jarrod Owens completed the top five, after a great drive from the back of the grid.

Media release: Richard Gee

Photo: Matt Smith

ENEOS North Island Endurance Championship – One Hour – Round 1 Taupo Result

1	Matt Whittaker	Porsche 991.2	Class GT B
2	Nick Chester	Holden VX Supercar	Class GT B
3	Andy Duffin	Mazda RX7	Class 1
4	Simon McLennan	Holden Commodore	Class GT B
5	Jarrod Owens	Porsche 997	Class GT B
6	Brian McGovern	Porsche 997	Class GT B
7	Blair McDonald	Holden Commodore	Class GT B
8	Sean Kirkpatrick	Porsche 997	Class GT B
9	Charles Rollo	Toyota AE86	Class 1
10	Darryl Clarke	Ford Falcon	Class 1
11	Todd Murphy	Hyundai i45 ST	Class GT B
12	Cam McCormack	Porsche 997	Class 1
13	Garry/Ben Derrick	Porsche 996	Class GT B
14	Brock Timperley	Ford Falcon BF	Class 1
15	B. Kirk-Burnnand	Ford Mustang	Class 1
16	Deon/Rick Cooper	Ssangyong Super Ute	Class 1
17	Wade Stevenson	Subaru Legacy	Class 2
18	Simeon Woolsey	Honda Integra	Class 3
19	Todd Foster	Toyota TR86	Class 3
20	Jake Stoneman	Ford V8 Ute	Class 1
21	Nick Archibald	Subaru WRX STi	Class 2
22	Pavlos van Aalst	BMW E30 M3	Class 2
23	David Rogers	Mitsubishi Evo X RS	Class 2
24	Simon Ussher	Ford V8 Ute	Class 1
25	Cullern Thorby	BMW 318Ti	Class 2
26	Stuart Monteith	Holden V8 Ute	Class 1
27	Brendan Murphy	Holden Commodore	Class 1
28	Paul Verryt	Honda Integra	Class 2