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| Pos | Car No. | Name | Car | Hometown | Total | Total | Total | Total | Total |
| Points | Rd1 | Rd2 | Rd3 | Rd4 | |||||
| 1 | 1 | Craig Baird | 997 | Queensland | 845 | 217 | 217 | 194 | 217 |
| 2 | 2 | David Reynolds | 997 | Melbourne | 777 | 134 | 209 | 225 | 209 |
| 3 | 47 | Daniel Gaunt | 997 | Auckland | 632 | 154 | 147 | 168 | 163 |
| 4 | 51 | Jono Lester | 997 | Auckland | 568 | 189 | 141 | 112 | 126 |
| 5 | 8 | Rodney Forbes | 997 | Sydney | 516 | 148 | 121 | 91 | 156 |
| 6 | 10 | Jody Vincent | 997 | Auckland | 485 | 114 | 114 | 98 | 159 |
| 7 | 11 | Darryn Henderson | 997 | Wellington | 466 | 111 | 117 | 111 | 127 |
| 8 | 98 | Mark Russ | 997 | Auckland | 458 | 130 | 87 | 111 | 130 |
| 9 | 3 | Anthony Pedersen | 997 | Rotorua | 433 | 114 | 130 | 153 | 36 |
| 10 | 40 | Shane McKillen | 997 | Auckland | 398 | 99 | 82 | 114 | 103 |
| 11 | 13 | Courtney Letica | 997 | Auckland | 352 | 117 | 49 | 117 | 69 |
| 12 | 82 | Andrew Bagnall | 997 | Auckland | 256 | 0 | 105 | 58 | 93 |
| 13 | 15 | Hugh Gardiner | 996 | Auckland | 213 | 80 | 97 | 36 | 0 |
| 14 | 35 | Rob Steele | 996 | Auckland | 89 | 89 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 15 | 92 | David Mackrell | 996 | Auckland | 78 | 78 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
updated 18/01/09 after Round 4 of 6
Media information
For immediate release
2008/09 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge NZ Championship
Round 4, Teretonga Park, Invercargill
January 16-18 2009
EVENT REPORT
INSPIRED TYRE CHOICE GIVES BAIRD THE EDGE AT TERETONGA
An inspired tyre choice for Saturday evening's 30 lap mini enduro race gave defending champion and series points
Leader Craig Baird just the edge he needed at the fourth round of the 2008/09 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup
Challenge championship at Invercargill's Teretonga Park motor racing circuit over the weekend. The 37-year-old was lucky to be awarded the fastest lap time in qualifying on Saturday morning (after arch-rival and round three winner David Reynolds had his quicker time disallowedbecause it was set when there was a yellow flag out on part of the circuit in the dying stages of the session) but Baird's decision to make a late change from wet to slick tyres before Saturday's race set him up for his third round win in four meetings. With the start of the twilight race already delayed due to torrential rain early in the evening the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup cars did not line up on the dummy grid until 8.30pm and the smart money at that stage was on wet tyres. However this season Baird is competing in both the Battery Town Porsche and BNT NZV8 championships and having just completed 11 laps in the Ford Falcon V8 he is driving in the BNT NZV8 championship he decided the track was dry enough for slicks for the following Porsche race.
The result was that he and Triple X teammates Reynolds, Daniel Gaunt and Rodney Forbes made it their own, locking down the first four places respectively and setting Baird up for another winning weekend. "It was certainly a pretty good call on Craig's behalf
.,teammate Reynolds said afterwards. "I was surprised that the other guys didn't follow suit." Most did, but only once the race had started, leaving theTriple X foursome to annex the top four spots from Darryn Henderson, Jody Vincent, Shane McKillen and Mark Russ. Baird went on to win the second race of the weekend on Sunday morning then finish second behind Reynolds in the reverse top six grid final to take the round from Reynolds, Gaunt, Vincent, Forbes, Mark Russ, Darryn Henderson andJono Lester. Reynolds, who completed a clean-sweep at last weekend's series round at Timaru, had the consolation of a win in the reverse top six grid final and a new category lap record having first lowered it in Saturday's race then gone even quicker (leaving it at 58.341) in the second. Despite Baird's round win he also narrowed the points gap between the two from 70 to 68. Daniel Gaunt remains third overall but both Baird and Reynolds have increased their advantage over him, the gap between Baird and third placed Gaunt going from 159 heading into the round to 213 after it. Fourth for the round and now sixth overall in the series points standings after a better weekend than he had in Timaru was Jody Vincent, the Pukekohe driver qualifying sixth and starting his weekend with a sixth in the mini-enduro after his own last minute decision to swap from wets to slicks saw him start from pit lane. He then went on to finish fourth in the second race on Sunday morning and third in the reverse top six grid final which he started from pole. Australian driver Rodney Forbes also had a good round qualifying seventh then finishing fourth in Saturday's race, third in the first race on Sunday and seventh in the final. Giltrap Group team car driver Mark Russ was the best of the category's young guns in qualifying, setting the third fastest time behind Baird and Reynolds but ended up two laps down in eighth place after stopping to change fromwets to slicks in the first race. He went one better in the second race after running line astern with fellow hard charger Jono Lester in the second race then claimed a weekend best fifth in the final. Lester again qualified well (fifth) but like Russ was made to pay for his tyre choice in the first race. That said he had a better weekend than one of the category's other young guns, Ant Pedersen. Pedersen's trouble started in qualifying, ironically after he had just set the third fastest lap time. Trying to go even quicker he speared off the circuit at the end of the long front straight, beaching his car in the sand trap and bringing out the yellow flags. It was these yellows which prompted the organisers to ignore the quicker times set late in the session by the likes of Reynolds and to add insult to injury Pedersen was relegated from third place to the back of the grid for the first race for 'inconveniencing the other drivers.' Like Russ and Lester he then had to stop mid race to swap to slicks but with the tyres came a severe vibration, one so bad he elected not to go back out again. As if that was bad enough just before he was due to leave his pit for the second race on Sunday morning his car's on-board jack system malfunctioned, then he was slowed by a fuel surge problem in the race. Another driver to strike problems this weekend was 996 category pace-setter Hugh Gardiner whose weekend ended early with a heavy crash late in Saturday's mini-enduro. With the South Island leg of the 2008/09 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge championship now completed for another season the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge championship series returns to the North Island for a non-championship Trophy round at the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport meeting in Taupo next weekend then the penultimate championship round at the Manfeild circuit in February. It is then on to the final championship round at Pukekohe in March before a second non-championship Trophy round at the V8 Supercar meeting round the streets ofHamilton in April.Qualifying
1. Craig Baird 58.185
2. David Reynolds 58.202
3. Mark Russ 58.318
4. Ant Pedersen 58.590
5. Daniel Gaunt 58.683
6. Jono Lester 58.731
7. Jody Vincent 58.924
8. Rodney Forbes 58.981
9. Courtney Letica 59.170
10. Darryn Henderson 59.174
11. Andrew Bagnall 1.00.213
12. Shane McKillen 1.00.335
13. Hugh Gardiner 1.00.712
Race 1 (30 laps)
1. Craig Baird 30.22.096
2. David Reynolds +0.372
3. Daniel Gaunt +9.220
4. Rodney Forbes +1.00.066
5. Darryn Henderson +1 lap
6. Jody Vincent +1 lap
7. Shane McKillen +1 lap
8. Mark Russ +3 laps
9. Jono Lester +3 laps
10. Andrew Bagnall +6 laps
not classified:Letica, Gardiner,
Pedersen
Fastest lap. Reynolds 58.486
Race 2 (12 laps)
1. Baird 11.50.346
2. Reynolds +7.176
3. Forbes +7.613
4. Vincent +7.772
5. Gaunt +8.194
6. Lester +9.442
7. Russ +9667
8. Henderson +13.428
9. Letica +21.565
10. McKillen +24.446
12. Bagnall +27.522
dnf: Pedersen dns Gardiner
Newlap record Reynolds 58.341
Race 3 (16 laps top six
Reverse grid)
1. Reynolds 15.48.363
2. Baird +1.640
3. Vincent +8.306
4. Gaunt +8.893
5. Russ +9.732
6. Lester +14.859
7. Forbes +18.426
8. Henderson +27.400
9. Pedersen +34.138
10 Letica +34.444
11 Bagnall +1.00.612
12. McKillen +1.00.732
Fastest lap: Reynolds 58.404
Round overall
1. Craig Baird 217 points
2. David Reynolds 209
3. Daniel Gaunt 163
4. Jody Vincent 159
Points after Rnd 4 of 6
1. Craig Baird 845
2. David Reynolds 777
3. Daniel Gaunt 632
4. Jono Lester 568
5. Rodney Forbes 516
6. Jody Vincent 485
7. Darryn Henderson 466
8. Mark Russ 458
9. Ant Pedersen 433
10. Shane McKillen 398
11. Courtney Letica 352
12. Andrew Bagnall 256
13. Hugh Gardiner 213
14. Rob Steele 89
15. David Mackrell 78
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