New Zealand V8 Series champion Simon Evans has established a strong lead in the Toyota 86 Championship after taking two race wins at Ruapuna.
Up against the strongest 86 field in years, Evans capped a fine weekend at the Mike Pero Motorsport Park with his second win in the Toyota 86 Championship extending his points lead to 51 points after two rounds of the 2022 title battle.
With the grid based on points accumulated over the weekend, the category’s final race for the weekend started as an all-Giltrap Racing affair with Simon Evans on pole position and Marco Giltrap alongside.
Track conditions for the 10 lap race had improved dramatically following the drizzle-affected morning race. Evans made a clean getaway to lead into the first corner; Justin Allen also made a strong start from the second row and emerged from turn one in second place ahead of Giltrap and another fast starter – Ronan Murphy (son of racing legend Greg Murphy) – who sprinted from the third row in the Pirtek car. Murphy was able to get ahead of defending champion Rowan Shepherd though the latter found a way back past.
Clay Osborne brought out the safety car when he stopped on the infield but at the restart the experienced Evans retained the lead from Allen. Murphy passed Shepherd to get himself back into fourth, while behind them a battle was underway for the remaining places in the top ten between Zac Stichbury, Hugo Allan, Dion Pitt and Matthew McCutcheon.
As the laps counted down, Evans was driving defensively to keep Justin Allen behind him. Allen made a couple of big attacks – including two attempts on the last lap – but couldn’t quite find a way past Evans.
Evans finished ahead with Allen second and Marco Giltrap just a few car lengths behind in third. Murphy was a fighting fourth which made up for some of the disappointment of losing his second place from the morning race, while Shepherd had to be content with a fifth place finish in what is turning out to be a very competitive championship battle.
Zac Stichbury looked like he would take sixth until a wild moment on the grass on the last lap that dropped him to ninth. Dion Pitt made the most of that opportunity to finish sixth ahead of McCutcheon, Brock Gilchrist, Stichbury and leading master-class driver John Penny.
The third round of the 2022 Toyota 86 Championship will take place at Hampton Downs in north Waikato, February 12-13.