Super GTs hit by crashes

There was plenty of action in the opening round of the Rodin Cars Super GT Series at Highlands Motorsport Park.

It was a tough start to the weekend for the new series with Saturday afternoon’s race one abandoned after a lengthy red-flag period.

Pole-sitter Shane Hodgson made heavy contact with the wall prior to the bridge at Highlands, which saw the safety car deployed before eventually going to a red flag.

Hodgson was attended by medical crews before being transported to Queenstown hospital for checks.

With the concrete wall repair taking too long and because less than the 75 per cent minimum race time had not been completed when the race was red-flagged, it was abandoned with no result given and no points awarded.

With racing resuming on Sunday morning, Steve Scoles driving his Ginetta G55 clinched victory in race two. He was followed to the line by Grant Aitken in his Porsche Cayman GT4, with Chris Nicholas in his Porsche 997 in third rounding out the podium.

“We’ve had GT4 cars for three years now and to actually win a first race with them is pretty cool,” says Scoles.

For the final race of the weekend, the one-hour feature, hot conditions greeted the field in what turned out to be a battle of attrition.

Multiple safety vehicles were called, which greatly affected the racing order, and in some cases took out contenders.

The Porsche of Paul Kelly had to retire after lap one after sustaining damage at the bus-stop section and colliding with the plastic safety barriers.

By lap nine, a safety car was called for a collision between the Porsches of Gene Rollinson and Gary Derrick. The duo made contact on the run-up to the bridge, Rollinson ending up in the tyre barrier with Derrick limping off to the other side.

With the safety car deployed, most of the field drove into the pit lane for compulsory stops.

A handful of laps later, another incident at the same section of track between the Ginetta of Steve Scoles and the Porsche of Chris Nicholas saw the latter make heavy side-on contact with the wall.

Scoles had further contact a few corners later, colliding with the rear of the Todd Bawden McLaren. The Ginetta making heavy contact with the concrete wall and the wounded McLaren limping back to the pits with suspension damage.

After the carnage had been cleaned up, the safety car returned to the pits and it was a four-minute sprint to the flag with a number of front runners from earlier in the race carving their way through the field.

Once one hour was up, it was the Porsche of Ben Byers that claimed the honours followed by Connor Adam. Martin Dippie grabbed third spot.

“That was crazy, I hope the guys in those incidents were alright,” says Byers, pictured below. “That bridge just owns everybody.

“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 GT4s saw the Aston Martin of Stephen Harrison in sixth, the McLaren of Nigel Cromie in seventh and David Cremer, also in a McLaren, in eighth.

The second round of the Rodin Cars Super GT Series heads to Mike Pero Motorsport Park at Ruapuna, Christchurch next weekend.