Simon Evans backed up his earlier pole position with a race win, in the first Toyota 86 race of the weekend at Highlands Motorsport Park.
Justin Allen challenged for the lead off the start line but was unable to get ahead of Evans.
By the halfway point in the race, Evans held a 2.5 second lead over Allen, which he was able to extend to 4 seconds by the end of the race. Allen would cross the line in second.
“It was really good. The start was great and I was committed to going side by side and ensuring I had the lead. It wasn’t easy but once I was ahead, I just concentrated on keeping it clean and not making any mistakes. Thankfully, that was enough to edge away and win,” Evans said after the race.
Allen had a clean race, sided from an attempted pass by Dion Pitt that saw him run wide, leaving Allen in second place, while Pitt remained in third, in his first race in the series.
“I ran wide and all of a sudden the guys behind were there,” Dion said after the race.
“I just about managed to keep them behind so I’m stoked. Simon’s quick but we’ll keep working at it and see where we get to.”
Pitt stayed ahead of the battle for fourth, though they made ground on him after he ran wide. Marco Giltrap, Clay Osborne, and Hugo Allan spent much of the race fighting for fourth, though they would cross the line in fourth, fifth, and sixth respectively.
Reigning champion Rowan Shepard fought back to finish seventh after starting the race in 11th.
Matthew McCutcheon made a strong debut in the series finishing inside the top ten, taking eighth, while Ronan Murphy also improved through the race to finish ninth. John Penny rounded out the top ten, also taking the Masters Trophy class win.
Christina Orr-West, Rianna O’Meara-Hunt and Chelsea Herbert ran together for much of the race finishing 13th, 14th, and 15th respectively.
Tomorrow mornings race will have a reversed top ten, leaving Evans to start from tenth.
“I’m going to have to make some brave but wise calls,” Evans added.
“I need to move forward but a DNF will really hurt my chances, as a DNF will for anyone else in the championship.”