Nose to tail racing should be a guarantee when the Toyota 86 Trophy Series takes to the iconic Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon track in Feilding for the third round this weekend.
While championship leader Lee Zeltwanger dominated the three races of the first round, honours for the two races at the second round a fortnight ago were split between young Ajay Giddy and Harry Townshend. And try as he might, there was nothing Zeltwanger could do as he headed the rest of the compact but very high-quality field.
Zeltwanger’s performance so far in the winter series is all the more impressive because the small team running him – Skunkworks Racing – is also new to Toyota 86 racing. Lee and his team are also mixing it with some big names in NZ motorsport, including Mackenzie Motorsport, iMac Engineering, RaceLab Academy and Action Motorsport.
Timaru’s Corban Sprague is another new to Toyota 86 racing, having secured the CareVets Scholarship prize for this inaugural winter TR86 series, and he may just make that breakthrough to a first win this weekend, having gained in speed and confidence over the previous two rounds.
Matt Day is in a very similar situation, on track, catching the eye with some great racing laps and race speed. Combine that with an improvement in qualifying, and he will also be a threat for race wins this weekend. Nathan Grammer and Toby Elmiger are improving with each outing, too, and can be expected to go well.
The two experienced Toyota GR86 Championship runners – Townshend and Giddy – will inevitably be close to the outright pace regardless of this weekend and will be hunting for more race victories as they try to win the Winter class of the series. They are ineligible for Trophy Class points.
The technical and cambered turns of the Manfeild circuit invariably create great racing amongst the Toyota 86s, and there’ll be plenty of action for them this weekend with two practice sessions, qualifying and one race on Saturday and two races on Sunday.
Header Image: Bruce Jenkins
