Sam Fillmore and Jonny Reid claimed overall honours in the New Zealand Endurance Championship 3-Hour on Saturday at Highlands, a charging drive in their Audi R8 Evo 2 enough to overcome wet conditions and a fast field.
Glenn Smith and Damon Leitch, in a McLaren 650S GT3, took out second in the event, whilst Andrew Fawcet and Daniel Gaunt overcame an early off to round out the podium.
The Class 2 winner was the Porsche 991 Cup MR of Francois Beziac and Tom Alexander, which finished fourth overall, while Marco Giltrap backed up his Class 2 & 3 1-Hour victory by taking out the Class 3 honours in the 3-Hour, with Simon Evans.
Class 4 saw Barry Moore and James Paterson as the first home in an Audi R8 GT 2.0T which finished eighth overall.
Finally, Class 5 was taken out by Andrew and Will Kitching, their Toyota GT86 finishing in 11th.
The battle between Fillmore and Reid and the McLaren 720S of Fawcet and Gaunt continued from the South Island Endurance Series, the two teams locking out the front row. It was the Audi on pole after a dominant qualifying session where they pipped the McLaren by over half a second.
Once it was race time, the McLaren was the better of the starters, immediately put under pressure from the Nissan GTR with Chris van der Drift at the wheel.
A coming together of the two saw Fawcet venture off track, becoming beached in the gravel and triggering a Safety Car. Van der Drift was awarded a drive through penalty for his role in the incident, passing the lead on to the Porsche 991 Cup MR of Jono Lester and Heremana Malmezac.
They too lost the lead of the race because of a drive through penalty, speeding under the Safety Car their offence.
Once that penalty was served, it was van der Drift back into the lead, which he held until around the mid-point of the race.
Scott O’Donnell and Ryan Wood were the first casualty of the race, their Porsche GT3 R with steering damage and veering wide into the gravel. This resulted in front and radiator damage for the car, their day cut short.
There was also hard luck for the home-built Toyota Altezza of Grant and Matt Moore, clipping the ripple strip entering the bridge damaged the front-left and saw them to limp back for repairs. It was no small job, however, the team retiring from the race.
Thing began to change from here, however, the clear conditions at the start quickly evolving into wet weather. The rain came with about 90 minutes in the race remaining, the field forced to rethink strategy and come in for a tyre change to wets.
Once Lance Hughes took over for van der Drift, the conditions had deteriorated significantly. With just over an hour remaining, Hughs made hard contact with the Turn 2 wall after aquaplaning, the crash putting the race-leaders out of contention as they were forced to retire.
Around the same time, Malmezac spun on the bridge, the race stopped for 30 minutes to clear the track.
A lengthly Safety Car period was required once the field returned to the track, the track wet with standing water in multiple places.
With 20 minutes remaining, the lights went green, however this was short-lived with yet another intervention required after the Askew Golf went off at the hairpin, becoming stranded in the gravel.
Fillmore and Reid were now in the race lead over Paul and Anthony Pedersen, in a Mercedes-AMG GT3, the leading four all within seconds of each other.
With just minutes remaining, Ant Pedersen attempted an overtake on Reid at the hairpin for the lead. Out-braking a competitor in the conditions was a brave move, however failed to pay off as the Mercedes spun into the gravel at the hairpin, failing to finish the race.
Reid held on from here to take the victory, while Smith and Leitch drove an impressive, clean race to finish second.
