Arthur Broughan showed his undoubted speed on the opening day of the first round of Nexen Tyre NZ Mazda Racing North Island Series at the OctoberFAST event at Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon on Saturday.
Broughan, who is only contesting the early rounds of the North and South Island Series this year, continued his good from last weekend’s South Island opener by taking pole position in qualifying, just a touch under the official lap record, with a time of 1 minute 17.604 seconds.
Stuart Lawton was second fastest, 0.685s behind, while Sam Dashfield, returning 2022/2023 champion Rex Edwards, Karl Gaines and the other South Islander in the field, Mac Templeton. Aucklanders Callum Pratt, Mark Oudney, Elton Wichman and Steve Brown completed the top ten.
New Plymouth teenager Page Macey qualified well in her first outing in the series, while Auckland’s Leo Bult struggled with a solenoid problem. Phil Clemas was disqualified and dropped to the back of the 20-car grid when his car was found to be underweight.
Saturday’s sole 10 lap race in the afternoon did not disappoint, with plenty of good racing.
The start was very clean considering the competitiveness of the field, although Broughan didn’t get the best of it from pole and dropped to third leaving Lawton, who in contrast made a blinder of a start, to lead Edwards.
Despite his tardy start, Broughan showed great patience as he bided his time, climbing to second on Lap 7 and then taking the lead a tour later.
He opened a gap of 1.1 seconds to Lawton on the remaining laps as he took the chequered flag ahead of the Paraparaumu driver, with Edwards crossing the line third but incurring a 5-second penalty for weaving just prior to the start, which dropped him to seventh.
Templeton, who drove a great race, and Dashfield had a coming together through the esses near the end of the race. Templeton recovered to pick up third after the penalty was applied to Edwards, while Dashfield could not continue.
Gaines was classified fourth followed by Oudney and Pratt. Edwards slotted into seventh with Brown, Lance Gerlach and Wichman completing the top ten.
Mazda Racing Series competitors will race twice on Sunday, begining with top ten reverse grid race over 12 laps followed by a 10-lap finale.
