There was plenty of action at the opening round of the Rodin Cars Super GT Series at Highlands Motorsport Park this weekend.
It was a tough start to the weekend for the new series as the first race on Saturday afternoon was abandoned after a long red flag period.
Pole sitter Shane Hodgson made a violent contact with the wall before the bridge at Highlands Circuit, prompting the safety car to be deployed before eventually driving to a red flag.
Hodgson was cared for by medical staff before being taken to Queenstown Hospital for a check-up.
Because repairing the concrete wall was taking too long and less than 75 percent of the minimum race time had not been completed when the race was red flagged, the race was abandoned with no result and no points awarded.
With racing restarting on Sunday morning, Steve Scoles in his Ginetta G55 took victory in the second race followed by Grant Aitken in his Porsche Cayman GT4 while Chris Nicholas in his Porsche 997 rounded out the podium in third.
“We’ve had GT4 cars for three years now and to actually win a first race with them is pretty cool,” said Scoles.
For the final race of the weekend, the hour-long feature, hot conditions greeted the field – in what proved to be a battle of attrition.
Several safety cars were called, greatly affecting the race order and in some cases eliminating race competitors.
Paul Kelly’s Porsche had to give up after the first lap and was damaged in the area of the bus stop – it collided with the plastic crash barriers.
On lap nine, a safety car was called for a collision between the Porsches of Gene Rollinson and Gary Derrick. The duo touched leading up to the bridge, Rollinson ending up in the tire barrier while Derrick limped to the other side of the track.
With the safety car deployed, most of the field ducked into the pit lane for their mandatory pit stops.
A few laps later, in another incident on the same stretch of track between Steve Scoles’ Ginetta and Chris Nicholas’ Porsche, Nicholas made violent side contact with the wall.
Scoles made another contact a few corners later and collided with the rear of the Todd Bawden McLaren. The Ginetta hit the concrete wall violently and the wounded McLaren limped back to the pits with suspension damage.
After the carnage was cleared up the safety car returned to the pits and it was a 4 minute sprint to the checkered flag, some of the front runners from earlier in the race weaving their way through the field.
After an hour it was Ben Byers’ Porsche who claimed the honor followed by Connor Adam and Martin Dippie who took third place.
“That was crazy, I hope the guys in those incidents were okay. Everyone owns this bridge,” Byers said after the race.
“We just stayed out of trouble and kept my nose clean. There was a lot going on with safety cars, it was a crazy race.”
Further down the field, the first of the GT4 cars saw Stephen Harrison’s Aston Martin in sixth, Nigel Cromie’s McLaren in seventh and David Cremer, also driving a McLaren in eighth.
The second round of the Rodin Cars Super GT Series will now take place at Mike Pero Motorsport Park in Ruapuna, Christchurch next weekend.
© Scoop Media
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