Otago drivers established themselves on overall and class podiums across the second round of the three and one-hour ASKO Endurance Series' races at the weekend.
Best performed was Dunedin's Allan Dippie racing the Porsche 997 Cup S he and co-driver Scott O'Donnell, of Invercargill, purchased for this season. They finished third in the three-hour series at Ruapuna in Christchurch on Saturday. Dippie said the car ran ''faultlessly'' and easily clocked under 1min 30sec lap times over the 114-lap race, whereas his former Porsche 996 would be doing well to clock under that time on just a few laps a race, last year.
Paul Kelly, of Christchurch, and Melbourne-based Kiwi co-driver Daniel Gaunt won the race in their Porsche 997 GT3.
Alexandra's Bruce Davidson and Dave Garden's Corvette qualified ninth but had climbed to third place before heating issues in the back end forced their retirement.
Davidson said the race pace was ''phenomenal'' and they expected some ''gremlins'' with their newly built car.
Class 3 and 4 (0-2000cc) winners were Dunedin's Paul Coghill and David Hunter in the ex-Kiwi Team Nurburgring Honda Civic, who also finished 12th overall. In the one-hour series class battles, Dunedin's Chris Henderson was third overall behind winner Grant Williams in his Mazda RX7 V8.
Henderson's result gave him first in class 1 (3501cc and above) in his Toyota AE86 V8. In class 3 and 4 (0-2000cc), Grant Aitken (Queenstown) was third in his Toyota 86.
Dunedin's Arron Black got his BMW E46 WTC's new engine going, only for it to backfire and burst into flames, blowing up his air box, before qualifying.
