Foster and Reid take Round 3

Photos courtesy of Matt Smith

Neil Foster and Jonny Reid have taken Round 3 for the North Island Endurance Series 3Hour race and have taken over the Championship lead. With Alex Riberas and Darren Kelly finishing second place and Andrew Fawcett and Sam Fillmore finishing third.

Alex Riberas started rom pole and race off into the distance with Chris van der Drift moving second position with Martin Short retiring the Speedworks Audi R8 in the early stages after finishing third in the 1Hour race.

The Giltrap/Evans would make a pitstop at the 30minute mark in their newly acquired McLaren 570S GT4 followed by an unscheduled pitstop from the Dovey/Lester Audi A5 GT V8 pitting for a gearbox issue and would make its way back out at the pits at the 1hr 8minute mark to finish 10^th.  

Chris van der Drift handed the Hampton Asphalts Nissan R35 GTR GT3 over to Lance Hughes to complete his 70minute stint while Riberas would hand the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 over to Darren Kelly at the 1hr 9minute mark.

Glenn Smith was the next driver to make a pitstop 1minute later to hand over to John de Veth while two minutes after that Neil Foster was in to hand his Audi R8 LMS GT3 over to Jonny Reid.

The Todd Murphy/Andy Greenslade Hyundai i45 V8 Super Tourer came into the pits at the 1hr 14minute mark followed by Shane Helms who elected to enter his Audi TT VLN to gain some points in order to Qualify for the NZ Final pitted to hand over to Greg Murphy.

However, there would be a very nasty incident for Marco Giltrap and Simon Evans McLaren 570 S GT4 when a stuck throttle caused them to go straight down the escape road the end of the back straight and slammed into a tyre barrier.

The driver was reported to be at a status 3 at time after incident and was take to paramedic went medical checks.

The rest of the field would make their pitstops during the 40minute safety car period. On the restart Jonny Reid put the pressure on Darren Kelly for the lead of the race and would eventually find his way though.

However, Chris van der Drift would have to another pit stop costing the team third place then Darren Kelly would have to hand the Heart of Racing Aston Martin back over to Alex Riberas as Riberas had not completed his minimum driving time.

Jonny Reid would take the win the Riberas just hanging on to second position and Sam Fillmore taking his first podium of the season coming home in third. Shane Helms and Greg Murphy finished sixth overall and took class 1 while Stephan Harrison and Shane Murland took out the GT-B win

Foster and Reid now lead the Championship on 190points with Riberas and Kelly are now second on 185 points with Glenn Smith and John de Veth still in third on 172points.

Overall and GT-A

1^st 22 Neil Foster/Jonny Reid Audi R8 LMS GT3 International Motorsport

2^nd 52 Alex Riberas/Darren Kelly Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Heart of Racing

3^rd 10 Andrew Fawcett/Sam Fillmore Audi R8 LMS MyLand Partners, JFC

GT-B

1^st 111 Stephan Harrison/Shane Murland Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 GT8R RaceLab, Aston Martin Auckland.

2^nd 17 Todd Murphy/Andy Greenslade Hyundai i45 V8ST Murphy Buses

Class 1

1^st 77 Shane Helms/Greg Murphy Audi TT VLN , Race Lab

2^nd 20 Tony Head/Seton Head Toyota Altezza Kea Trailers

3^rd 80 Matt Dovey/Jono Lester Audi A5 GT V8 DFM Racing, AA Insurance