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At Highland Park for the 68th New Zealand Grand Prix meeting, Herne led the Australian charge against the New Zealanders to take out Race 1 of the second leg of the TA2 Challenge and firm up the visitors’ points lead.
In a Dodge Challenger, Herne qualified fastest and never looked like losing as he went on to take out the 10-lap race by over 6s. Second throughout was the leading Kiwi Ben Stewart in a Chev Camaro.
Behind them were Australian Brad Gartner (Challenger) and NZ’s Brent Collins (Challenge) who passed both Graham Cheney (AU, Camaro) and Mark Crutcher (AU, Ford Mustang). The followed Peter Ward (NZ, Camaro), Michael Coulter (AU, Camaro) and Greg Keam (AU, Mustang).
Bloxsom had his best qualifying result at the final round of the NZ Toyota 86 Championship where he earnt a front row start position and just missed out on pole position which went to Hunter Robb.
The latter won the start, but the race was red flagged before the end of the opening lap. Tim Leach had a mechanical failure, and the out-of-control car took out Saxon Sheehan.
At the restart Robb and Bloxsom ran side-by-side through the esses and banged wheels on the exit. Bloxsom fell back to fifth but steadied himself and was able to fight back to snare a third place on the line. He finished behind Robb, series leader Tom Bewley and edged out Jackson Rooney and William Exton.
The Australian girls in the race both improved from where they started. Alice Buckley qualified 15th and finished 10th. Summer Rintoule was out of 21st and crossed the line 18th.
For the final round of the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Championship where the last race on Sunday will also be the New Zealand Grand Prix, the Formula 1-style qualifying system was used. Qualifying 1 would set the grid for Race 1.
The last four qualifiers would start Race 3 in the same positions as Q2 and Q3 would eliminate the next five before the final eight vied for pole. Race 2 would be the reverse top 10 from Race 1’s finish.
Unfortunately four crashed including series leader Roman Bilinski the series leader, and Titus Sherlock in the first part. Then Kaleb Ngatoa and Michael Shin out of Q2. Bilinski did post the fastest time in Q1 but as he brought out the red flags, he was relegated to fourth.
His teammate and championship rival won the opener ahead of Callum Hedge with Bilinski third. Aussie Elliot Cleary, fresh back from Trans Am duties at Sandown started ninth and finished in the same position as fellow countryman Ryder Quinn was 12th after he lined up on the outside of the fifth row.
