A slippery track made for an interesting days racing at the final meeting of the season at Teretonga Park on the outskirts of Invercargill on Sunday.
The Noel McIntyre Drainage Clubmans Saloons, South Island Formula Ford class plus the Super 6 Saloon Series shared the billing at the meeting presented by Fulton Hogan.
The Chev Corvettes of Alexandra drivers David Garden and Bruce Davidson were the fastest qualifiers on a dry track early in the day but they did not race after rain arrived leaving Invercargill drivers Robert Ralston (Nissan Silvia) and Rick Michels (BMW M3) to share the wins in the first two races of the day for the class. Darryn Andrews of Christchurch was the runner-up on each occasion.
Michels went on to take the Flying Farewell from Ralston and Mark Quertier in one of the rapid Star Cars while he also won his category in the class race while other class winners in the final Clubmans outing of the season were Wayne Elliott, Jeremy Dawson and Quertier.
Don Nelson of Riverton qualified fastest of the sports and racing cars and won the first race plus the allcomers final. However Andre Heimgartner of Dannemora, the recent winner of the opening round of the Victorian Formula Ford Championship in Australia, was the fastest of the South Island Formula Ford competitors, winning two of his three races outright and finishing second behind Nelson's more powerful car in the other, taking Formula Ford honours in the process.
The Holdens dominated both numerically and also in the results in the Super 6 Saloon class. Kurtis Boult won all three races while Gary Sutherland, Sam Paddon and Paul Muir shared in the major placings with Wayne Christie upholding Ford honour with a third placing in one race. Sutherland battled a gearbox problem throughout the day.
The conditions caused several mishaps, a collision between Paul McCulla and Robert Toshach requiring one of the sports & racing car events to be restarted.
A teams race was a popular concept with Darryn Andrews and Warren Kett combining to win from Rick Michels and Nick Hamlin with Jeremy Dawson and Wayne Elliott third.
The meeting brought a close to the season with the traditional opening meeting of the new season expected in September.
