Justin Allen put his extensive circuit knowledge and some great driving to good effect to win the reverse grid race on Sunday morning at the penultimate round of the Bridgestone GR86 Championship at Manfeild – Circuit Chris Amon.
Allen held on to take a popular home win while Zach Blincoe made good inroads into championship leader Chris White’s lead with a fine second place. Arthur Broughan pressured team mate Blincoe throughout, but had to settle for third and the final spot on the podium.
Sunday morning though, was all about pay back for Allen after a challenging Saturday at the Manawatu track. “That’s redemption for yesterday,” he said afterwards. “There was some great racing yesterday but I got that damage which really affected my race. So this one’s for everyone this weekend, my family, my sponsors, it’s really great to give them all a home win.
“There’s no other feeling like that.”
A clean start gave Blincoe the edge and he and pole position sitter Allen stayed alongside each other until the fourth corner, before Zach snuck into the lead. Behind the top two there was ferocious action with Arthur Broughan, Lee Zeltwanger and Ajay Giddy fighting side by side with Saturday winner Hugo Allan.
The first two laps were breathless as the drivers fought for position, with Allen throwing everything and more at Blincoe to try and take the lead on his home circuit, which he managed to do – just – early on the third lap.
As things settled down a tiny bit, it was Allen from Blincoe, Broughan, leading rookie Lee Zeltwanger, Ajay Giddy, a charging Hugo Allan, with championship leader White being a little more cautious as he looked to protect a healthy points lead. Right Karts by M2 Competition trio Cooper Barnes, Josh Bethune and Cameron Hill were next through.
In the first half of the race Allen was in a real hurry to secure victory, looking wild at moments – but by the halfway mark of the race – the end of lap six – he was just three tenths of a second to the good ahead of Blincoe. There was a major queue behind the leader as well, all the way down to Allan as the top six were covered by under two seconds.
Blincoe was definitely focussing more on defence than attack, however, with five places between him and White very significant in the points table.
Chris meanwhile was under all sorts of pressure from the charging Right Karts by M2 Competition drivers line astern behind him, and Bethune looking increasingly impatient to get past and get after the lead pack. Josh finally made his way past White on lap nine – which was good news for Blincoe on the points – but Chris managed to hold off Josh’s team mate Barnes.
As the laps counted down, Allen remained unable to break the train behind him and by lap nine Blincoe was on his tail just two tenths down and with his mirrors full of Broughan and Zeltwanger in yet another classic GR86 slip streamer.
Lap ten, though, went well for Allen at the front and he built a more comfortable gap to Blincoe – though comfortable amounted to just over half a second. With Blincoe fiercely defending from Broughan, Justin was able to get his head down and press on for the final two laps. It was enough for the NAPA Autoparts local to seal the win, by just under a second.
Blincoe did a very good job to take second ahead of his team mate Broughan and close the gap to White to 37 points, while behind the top three Zeltwanger, Allan and Giddy fought all the way to the flag for fourth, fifth and sixth.
Bethune took seventh, while Barnes got by White crucially for eighth. That left White in ninth and Hill in tenth, with the scene set for an epic feature race later in the day.
Header image: Joel Hanks
2025-2026 Bridgestone GR86 Championship – Round 5 Manfeild – Race 2
1 – #99 – Justin ALLEN – NZ – Syndicate Motorsport
2 – #90 – Zach BLINCOE – NZ – Mackenzie Motorsport
3 – #222 – Arthur BROUGHAN – NZ – Mackenzie Motorsport
4 – #22 – Lee ZELTWANGER – NZ – CareVets Racing
5 – #1 – Hugo ALLAN – NZ – iMac Engineering
6 – #10 – Ajay GIDDY – NZ – Mackenzie Motorsport
7 – #32 – Josh BETHUNE – NZ – Right Karts by M2 Competition
8 – #186 – Cooper BARNES AUS – Right Karts by M2 Competition
9 – #88 – Chris WHITE – NZ – Neale Motorsport
10 – #43 – Cameron HILL – NZ – Right Karts by M2 Competition
11 – #73 – Harry TOWNSHEND – NZ – Mackenzie Motorsport
12 – #50 Nathan GRAMMER – NZ – Mackenzie Motorsport
13 – #25 – Lucas MCGILL – NZ – James Marshall Motorsport
14 – #92 – Mac TEMPLETON – NZ – Neale Motorsport
