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Tim Edgell has challenging weekend at the second round of the BNT V8 Championship in Christchurch

 

The #26 BNT sponsored Chesters Ford driver headed to the Powerbuilt Tools Raceway near Christchurch placed third in the championship standings after a very strong performance at Pukekohe’s opening round earlier in November.

Edgell Performance Racing faced several challenges at the Canterbury circuit and Edgell says, despite not finishing the first race, he’s pleased to have got through a demanding weekend on what is traditionally his least competitive track with a relatively positive result.

Edgell was right on the pace, as he was at Pukekohe, during Saturday’s qualifying, putting together the fifth-fastest time.

“There’s not much between the top four or five drivers at this level, with the lap times coming down to differences of just hundredths of a second,” said the former Formula Ford champion.

“So from fifth on the grid, I took a moderate approach to the rolling start – which can be chaotic – and managed to secure the inside line on Craig Baird, moving up to third by the end of lap one. Everything was going well, the car running strongly in third until the very last lap when the driveshaft broke, leaving us stranded on the side of the track. That was hugely disappointing as we were in for a solid result.”

With the Chesters Falcon quickly repaired, Edgell then started race two, the second 10-lapper, from the back of the grid. “We’d made some changes to the set-up and the car wasn’t as good as I’d have liked so the best I could do was get through to 12th and hold on there to the finish.”

The weekend’s third race sees the starting order determined by taking the points earned in the first two races and reversing the order, putting Edgell on pole.

“I won the race pretty comfortably from pole, but the start official believed I was over the speed limit when I crossed the start-finish line. A 10 second penalty was imposed, making the final result a third place. This kind of situation is incredibly frustrating – you don’t know when the start lights are going to go out and there was no advantage gained – but we decided it’s better to cop the penalty, take the 60 points for third place and move on.”

Scoring points in as many races as possible is vital in this closely-fought race series and with other competitors doing well, Edgell has been pushed down the overall standings to seventh place.

“But I’m only five points away from Andy Booth and Andy Knight in fifth and 25 points away from John McIntyre in third, so it’s very close. At this point in the season – with five rounds still to run – the main thing is not to lose contact with the leaders.”

Edgell heads to the South Island for two consecutive weekends of racing from 15 January, first at Teretonga outside Invercargill and the following weekend at Timaru International Raceway.

“We qualified third and second at these tracks last season and aim to repeat or better these results as we crack on with the 2011 races in January.”

Edgell Performance Racing thanks the following sponsors for their support: Chesters Plumbing and Bathroom, BNT, Marley, Hansen Products, Fuchs, Tru-Test Group, North Harbour Ford, Roca, FujiFilm, Element 82 Ltd, Wurth NZ and Journey on Roadside Solutions.

Keep up with the latest news from Edgell and his team via the Tim Edgell Racing Facebook page.

 

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