Dunedin's Black brothers Stu and Arron drove their two BMW E46s to double class success in the one-hour and three-hour races at the New Zealand Endurance Championship.
Sharing the driving duties at Highlands Motorsport Park on Saturday, they had flawless runs in their similar ex-World Touring Car Championship chargers, which came after some dramas beforehand.
In the first race, they had a serious fight on their hands right from the start flag to defend their national title.
"We started the one-hour from last as the alternator failed in qualifying, shutting the engine down. We fitted a new part to get it going 10 minutes before the start and it went mint from then on," Arron said.
In the three-hour race, they started from pit lane with 13 other penalised cars, which also breached Motorsport New Zealand regulations by not being in grid formation on time.
"We got into the class lead fairly quickly, built a gap, then cruised home. A fantastic weekend with no damage," Arron said.
Allan Dippie and Scott O’Donnell, of Dunedin and Invercargill respectively, were the next best-placed Otago drivers with a fourth in the one-hour race in their Porsche GT3 Cup S. They had been in the running for a podium but had " bit of a melee" going under the bridge when the car hit the gravel trap trying to avoid contact with another car and damaged its radiator.
Highlands operations manager Kynan Yu partnered with track member David McAlpine, of Auckland, in a McLaren GT4 to finish fifth, while Queenstown’s Grant Aitken brought his Porche GT4 home in sixth.
Dunedin Toyota Corolla V8 driver Chris Henderson had been a hot favourite for the one-hour win but had a fuel pump failure in qualifying and issues with the petrol cutting out in the race, which dropped him well down the pack.
