For Chris Henderson it was a case of the home built Corolla finally getting there, as he claimed his first SIES win after five years of coming close, in the one-hour race at Teretonga Park in Invercargill.
``We were pretty stoked. The first win was cool and it certainly was not against a depleted grid,'' Henderson said of the 40-car race that has proved so popular this year it has a reserve list for each of the three rounds.
His V8-powered Toyota Corolla AE86 beat a bevy of Porsche GT cars home and the victory was hard-earned after an enthralling tussle with the Ford Falcon V8 Supercar driven by Aucklander Shane Hodgson.
It was resolved on the final lap when a tyre deflated on the Falcon, pitching it off the track, leaving Henderson to win by 32.735sec from Timaru driver Steve Parker's Porsche, with Dunedin's Allan Dippie and Invercargill driver Scott O'Donnell third in their Porsche 997 Cup S .
Dippie then went on to claim a second podium with O'Donnell in their later model Porsche 991 Cup car, finishing runners-up in the three-hour series race later that day.
After about five hours in the two race cars in this first round of three, Dippie joked that his body was ``feeling it''.
After driving about half of the 162 laps on the southern circuit in the three-hour race before handing over to O'Donnell he acknowledged there was ``a lot going on in the car''.
Auckland brothers Matt and Dwayne Carter won the three-hour race in their Mercedes SLS AMG GT3. Third was Paul Rickerby and Graeme Rhodes, of Christchurch, in a Ford V8 SuperTourer, four laps behind the leaders.
The Carter brothers were in the lead when the first of three safety car interventions occurred, but a light sprinkling of rain at the restart saw Christchurch father and son Angus and George McFarlane's Porsche take the lead, only to spin off shortly afterwards.
When the Carter brothers took their pit stop, Dippie and O'Donnell took the lead, gaining a two-lap margin. The duo still led after their own pit stop, but the Mercedes reeled them in and despite a late, quick stop for fuel, maintained the lead.
After this weekend's round, the SIES moves to Ruapuna, Christchurch, on Saturday, October 1, before the final round at Levels Raceway, Timaru, on October 15.
