Round 6 Championship Final – Taupo Motorsport Park - 20th and 21st March 2010

The 2009/2010 NZV8 championship was won by PS Racing and Craig Baird with a race to spare. Craig also won the Porsche championship on the same day, also with a race to spare. Craig now has 27 championship titles.
    
It was always going to be a good weekend. The weather forecast was excellent. The facilities and park preparation was up to international standard. Congratulations to Taupo Motorsport Park and the Taupo Car Club for the way the event was run.

 The intervention quad used to attend crashes, spins, blow-ups etc was a sight not to be missed. Many times it had all four wheels off the ground and managed several well controlled drifts in the pumice and beautifully groomed catchment areas. And only one pace car; another testament to the facilities and preparation.  

A new innovation to keep the competitors “off the grass” was used in the form of a plastic highway road marker which worked really well, although a bit more expensive on the V8 mirrors. Lots of V8’s came in to get mirrors reset or replaced as they got slapped when going too close to the new markers.

The lap time of the “pace car” was the slowest on record, well over three minutes. Why was that? Was it to let  the guy that pitted to catch up?  I wonder, still am wondering actually…..

After being a bit critical in the past about cruising around to collect points for the championship we had one of our famous PSR meetings and decided to do just that. Craig has won most of his championship in the first go; we were on our second. We had a huge points advantage; about 131, so the championship was ours to lose. A non-finish would diminish the lead by 75 odd points and we wanted to wrap up both championships by race two to allow a “gloves off” reverse grid race.

Our car was quick right from test one and continued that way. We needed to be in the top four and finish better than 9th.
We qualified in the front row again, got a good start and slotted into second. Scott was in a bit of a rush and “owed us one”, and lots of contact was being made. The risk is too high and Craig waved him by as we had agreed not to mess up the Scott and Edgell battle for 3rd in the series. We finish 3rd with a massive points lead, but a non-finish could still cost us in race two.

Race two; on grid three, another good start and hold station until half distance when Edgell goes by in and effort to shut down Scott. A good safe decision. We finish a creditable 4th and win the championship with 125 points in the bank. I must say I was a bit relieved, and Dennis and I were knackered.

The preparation and set up in our workshop had paid off. We finished some small jobs in our garage at Taupo; the one with clean floors, walls, good lighting, wash basin, immaculate toilets and showers and double doors allowing a drive through.

We didn’t change the set up all weekend,; nothing. Same springs, shocks, ride height; nothing. Only tyre pressures and one fuel mixture change due to the high altitude. We didn’t have the new tyre advantage I figured we would have as many of our competitors had had bad days and non-finishes and “banked” new tyres for the final. We used old tyres in race two, keeping the best of the rest for the reverse grid race at the end of the day.

Before our final race, Craig had his final , and reverse grid, race in the Porsche. I must say that this was the most spirited drive I have seen in that class. He took the lead and pulled almost a second a lap and won easily. “Take that” I thought…

We are all hoping that Craig has enough energy for the V8 reverse grid race of 20 laps. Our cars are very different to drive and generate very high cabin temperatures. We fill the drink bottle and hope.
On Grid 24 for the 20 lapper, with NZ’s best to catch and get by in the reverse grid affair; no easy task!

Green, Green, Green, and the rolling start is underway …and that far back we cannot see the start lights. Cruise up to turn one, cars everywhere and we get past two of them. At the completion of lap two we have got six more and now up to 12th…..
     Lap 3 - 10th
     Lap 4 - Safety car
     Lap 5 -  9th
     Lap 6 - 8th
     Lap 8 - 6th
     Lap 9 - 5th
     Lap 11 -  4th
     Lap 12 - 3rd, and stay 3rd until lap 17
     Lap 18 - 2nd
     Lap 19 - 2nd
     Lap 20 – 1st
A hell of an effort, especially after winning the previous Porsche reverse grid race.

The credits…..

   United Video, who came on board 2002/2003 season, with a windscreen banner. We won the championship with Mark Pedersen that season, Mark’s third series win, two for Holden, one for Ford. United Video then took the naming rights for the whole car, for the last seven years.
Bill McPartland and Lindsay Hall from United Video, along with their 100 strong franchise dealers throughout NZ have stuck with us through good and bad times, and I can’t think of any sponsor that has put this level of commitment into the sport.

    Triple X Racing’s Shane McKillen and Mike Morton (The Butcher), for allowing their contracted driver Craig Baird to driver our car. Triple X and Craig wanted another (6 now) Porsche title and jointly we all  wanted the NZV8 title again. I’m sure we got our wires crossed at times. Some races were back to back with little gap for a breather, driver autograph sessions were tough and hard to be in two places at once, but we got by; sorry to the fans that missed out.

    The crew; the unsung heroes. Our car was always fast and up front and we finished every race we started. This allowed the huge points advantage at the end.

   Fusion, who came on board for the last three events.

   Healtheries Boost; came on for the final and Hamilton. This has given our team the BOOST needed to complete the series. Thank you to Suzanne, Geraldine and Martin.

    Brian Lawrence, who has joined us to give added value to our sponsors, and do the important “people” jobs that I am useless at. Dave McMillan introduced me to the Lawrence family over 40 years ago when Dave, Ross Sale and I  (at times) worked on brother Graeme’s Brabham single seater with their father Doug.

    Craig Baird MNZM, for the driving duties and winning for us all. This was done without ANY test days, simply arrive and drive. Amazing effort. Louise, Brieanna and Luca for putting up with the time away.

     Mark Pedersen for doing some test laps and assisting with our on board computer info.
Summary from Taupo, the final:
    Winner NZV8 Championship
     NZV8 reverse grid event
     Winner Porsche Championship
     Porsche reverse grid event
Six hard races in all.

We are all exhausted but still need to load up and the party starts at 6.00p.m.
The series organisers need to check the cars and ask us to strip the engine for inspection prior to prize giving. After the initial shock of more work, and missing the “do”, Dennis and crew meet the scrutineers request in good spirits, eventually getting to the party at 7.00p.m, just in time for the speeches and cups etc.

Our table was blessed with the championship cup, the NZV8 trophy, the Ashley Stitchbury Memorial trophy, the reverse grid trophy, and to top it all off Dennis gets Mechanic of the Year trophy. Brings bloody tears to yr eyes, I tell ya…..

I was staggering out of the party to the lower levels and came across a guy, from another class of racing on the day, loading up his gear.
He said, “How did you guys get on?”
I said, “It wasn’t a bad day”…. I even smiled………….

Thank you all for your support text messages etc…..was a grand feeling.
Craig and Mark are both on the NZV8 and Ashley Stitchbury trophies; a family affair.             Dennis was last seen asleep on the kerb outside JJ’s bar…..at 4.06a.m.

Regards

Garry Pedersen