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Bruce Jenkins / Supplied
Matthew Payne raced to his first TRS win at Hampton Downs and took the lead in the series.
Rookie driver Matthew Payne made two of two in the second round of the Toyota Racing Series at Hampton Downs, and returned home in race two on Saturday to claim the Dorothy Smith Memorial Cup.
The youngster, who took three third places at last weekend’s New Zealand Grand Prix, won the opening race of the day holding off rookie Peter Vodanovich, then did the double in style.
After 30 laps of the domestic circuit at the North Waikato track, Payne had clinched a resounding 14-second victory, leaving Kaleb Ngatoa and Vodanovich in second place to battle for the remaining places on the podium. Ngatoa came home second, but only narrowly, with Vodanovich barely half a second behind.
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Shane van Gisbergen produces an impressive course from last to first to win the New Zealand Grand Prix at Hampton Downs.
Vodanovich later received a post-race penalty for a height infraction and was disqualified from third place, elevating Tom Alexander to last on the podium.
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It certainly wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed for Payne, as once again the main race of the weekend for TRS had a lot of drama for the race winner even before the start. Mechanics swarmed over the championship leader’s car just half an hour before the start of the race when a gearbox oil change was required. Fortunately, everything was completed in time for him to start from pole position.
Demonstrating maturity beyond his years, Payne escaped from textbooks and took the lead on the first lap, quickly establishing a comfortable lead ahead of Billy Frazer, a hard-charging Ngatoa and Alexander.
“There were some problems with the car before the race that I was aware of and the guys were fixing them, I can’t thank them enough, they did an amazing job and the car was flawless,” he explained afterwards.
“I managed to get off to a good start and ran away and tried to push each lap. It’s going well and I can’t wait for Manfeild ”.
Starting in the front row, Frazer’s challenge might have been his strongest yet, but it all fell apart on lap three. A major battle for second place was building that involved him, Ngatoa and Alexander, but the contact going through the tricky first corner at Hampton Downs when the cars were nearly three in a row left him with the steering arm bent and without no choice but to visit the pits. Unfortunately for Frazer, his challenge, at least in this race, was over.
Chris Vlok continued his series improvement upward curve with good momentum to an eventual fourth place, keeping the experienced Alexander in his sights at all times and leaving Conrad Clark for six seconds on a stage. However, Clark fought back in the final stages of the race and had reduced the gap to three seconds at the end.
Frazer was rightly disappointed to have been forced into the pits, but the mechanics replaced the steering arm and put it in reverse. Showing he has plenty of pace, he still posted the second fastest lap in the race behind Payne on his way to finishing five laps down in his hastily repaired FT60.
