Tim Edgell says he is pleased with the promise he showed at the opening round of the Golden Homes North Island Endurance Series despite a blown diff which led to an early retirement.
Edgell’s ITM-backed Holden SuperTourer had found itself in the lead of the one-hour race at Hampton Downs after pole-sitter John De Veth made his compulsory pitstop at the ten-minute mark.
Maintaining a comfortable margin over the field, Edgell’s race was suddenly flipped on its head when he rolled to a stop on the entry to the final sweeper with 30 minutes on the clock.
Unable to make his way back to the pitlane, the safety car was deployed to help recover Edgell who then failed to return to the race.
But despite the DNF, Edgell says the pace demonstrated over the weekend was encouraging and he expects a similar showing at the final round at Pukekohe.
“We blew a diff which is a bit of a shame. But it is nothing we can’t fix in time for the next round,” Edgell told Velocity News.
“But I was really happy with the pace we showed. It was really good for a SuperTourer to qualify third overall and we were the best of the [SuperTourer] field.
“I don’t think Hamptons was ideally suited to our car either. Our strength is obviously in the straights and we are racing Porsches and GT cars which are really good at cornering. So, to get a personal best lap of a 1.04.1 in qualifying was fantastic.
“We didn’t put any expectations on the round but on Friday were in the among the mix of six or so top cars. But of course, when it comes to the race everyone puts fresh tyres on and it filters out the best.
“I think we will go well at Pukekohe. The old track with the full straight will be good fun and I think it will suit us better.”
After the final North Island round from Pukekohe, the best from both the three- and one-hour fields will head to Highlands Motorsport Park in Cromwell for the New Zealand Endurance championships.
Edgell is not setting his sights beyond the last race at Pukekohe and he won’t decide on contesting at Highlands until after North Island finale.
“It is too far away to decide at the moment. We will rectify the problems we had at Hamptons and do this last round at Pukekohe before making any decisions.”
The event was also one of the pioneer national events to be conducted under MotorSport New Zealand’s and Speedworks ‘Back in Motion’ plan which outlined how racing could go ahead safely under Covid-19 Alert Level 2.
Just happy to be back on the track, Edgell praised the work done to keep racing afloat amid a period of difficulty.
“I thought it was a well-run meeting. With all the Covid restrictions it went well, and the racing was good so I think [Speedworks] did a great job.”
The final round of the North Island Endurance Series will be held at Pukekohe Park over October 23-24.