Photo: Simon Sceats (left) battling with Grant Aitken through the first cornerForza3 Racing driver Simon Sceats has taken his fourth round win in succession at Manfeild over the weekend, pedalling the Forza3 Subaru Impreza to two more race victories to take the New Zealand Production Racing Series into a nail-biting finale at Taupo in five weeks time.
On the comeback trail since a troublesome opening round of the 2009/10 series at Pukekohe in November, Sceats has since been the man to beat in the Class E title chase, locked in battle with the Mitsubishi Evo pairing of Scott McKelvie and Grant Aitken.
Aitken and McKelvie have traded the points lead between them all season long, but with another round win to his name at Manfeild Sceats now trails series leader McKelvie by just four points with only the Taupo event remaining.
The Manfeild weekend was battered by periods of heavy rain and high winds that saw many come unstuck, however Sceats picked up where he left off in Timaru by taking his second pole position of the season by around 2/10ths of a second from Grant Aitken.
The opening race began uncharacteristically for Sceats, when he made an error off the start line and had dropped back through the field by the opening corner.
He managed to make his way back up into second place and was challenging for the lead late in the race when he dropped a wheel off the track attempting a pass at the hairpin, resulting in a half spin and gifting McKelvie second place.
Sceats regathered his composure to cross the line in third place.
The second race proved no such trouble for the Forza3 Subaru Impreza WRX, with Sceats taking the lead into the first corner after a quick getaway and edging away from the field to take victory by nearly two seconds from McKelvie.
The reverse grid final race provided the added challenge of slower traffic to negotiate through, and Sceats hadn’t yet taken a victory in a reverse grid race this season.
However, seeing the potential of near-equalling the points gap between he and McKelvie, Sceats put his head down determined to capitalise on any advantage he could.
Despite a slow start he gradually worked his way through the field, pulling off some clinical passes to lead the race by the mid way point, controlling the field thereafter to take the race victory, and with it the round.
"What a weekend!" Sceats said, elated after the final race win.
"I've made a few more mistakes than usual this weekend and it could have been a whole lot worse for me, but the Forza3 Impreza had really consistent fast pace all weekend and it meant we could still take two wins from three."
“Race one was a bit of a disappointment – we could have been leading the points going into Taupo had I not made an error at the hairpin, but four points...it’s game on for the final round!”
