The scene has been set for a fantastic weekend of racing at the Pukekohe Flying Farewell with Friday’s action offering just a glimpse of what’s yet to come.
A bumper schedule of nine categories of cars took to the track for at least two sessions each with the famed NAPA Auto Parts NZ Super Trucks kicking the event into action with the first practice session in the morning.
A further practice session was then followed by this evening’s qualifying which saw Alex Little step forward to take pole over Brent Collins by .241 seconds.
Eleven trucks have made the long trip up the country to compete at the event having raced just last weekend in Invercargill. Ron Salter is included in the mix despite a brief scare after a cancelled ferry sailing caused the team to send out an SOS on social media.
New Zealand trucking company StraightNZ Road Freight came to the rescue, swapping on of their spots with the Salter Motorsport crew to allow for Salter to get to the track with just two hours to spare.
Today’s sole race in the Production Race Series set the benchmark for the weekend to come with Josh Smith pulling away for an emphatic victory in his Subaru WRX.
The battle for second was much tighter, however, with Ben van der Werff (Mitsubishi Evo 8) narrowly getting the better of Eric Budd (Toyota Levin) by just .13 seconds after 8 laps of racing.
The Napa Central Muscle Cars also undertook their qualifying session with Pukekohe great Angus Fogg powering to pole over Andy Knight, Shane Wigston and Shane Holland respectively. (Main photo: Tony Galbraith (1972 Valiant Charger) qualified ninth in the Napa Central Muscle Cars)
Honda Cup’s pole position was taken out by Raymond Mallin over Jamie Wiggins and Bailey Cruse. Only .02 seconds separated the trio in what sets up a massive opening race tomorrow morning.
The other qualifying session undertaken on Friday was that of the Pre65 and Super Minis where Wayne Davis set the fastest lap in the extremely quick Chevrolet Nova. He has Corey Ross (Ford Mustang) on the front row for company, and Grant Crosby (Ford Thunderbird) and Jack Packer (Jaguar MK1) on the row behind.
The Mazda Racing Series will qualify on Saturday but Simon Baker, Rex Edwards, Terry Edwards and Leo Bult have set the early pace in practice. Rex Edwards was fastest in the first outing before Baker got the better of him second time around.
Timothy Edgell is the man showing pace in the Super V8s, a blistering 1:06.272 putting over 3 seconds clear of the field in the first practice which was dominated by two red flags.
Second practice gave a better insight as to how the field shapes up with Kerry Jones topping Edgell by .116 seconds.
Some good laps were put in by the V8 Utes over their two practice runs. Glenn Collinson went fastest over Jake Stoneman in the first before the duo replicated their results in the second.
Finally, the Colin Waite Open GT class had a familiar face atop the leader board as Glenn Smith returns to Pukekohe in his lap-record holding Crawford Porsche.
Smith is attempting to top his previous best of 59.073 seconds at the Flying Farewell, coming extremely close in second practice when he set a 1:00.375.
Saturday sees Pukekohe’s Flying Farewell shift up a gear when Super Trucks open proceedings with a scrub session at 9.30am.
Four qualifying runs for other classes follow that before an impressive 14 races rounds out the second to last day of running at Pukekohe.
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