Tim Edgell Wins Shock Pole Position for BNT V8s

Tim Edgell Wins Shock Pole Position for Bnt V8s at Hamilton

Auckland’s newest motor racing star, Tim Edgell, has qualified on pole position for the opening BNT V8s race supporting the V8 Supercars at the ITM 400 in Hamilton this weekend. Edgell powered his Chesters Falcon to the fastest time in today’s qualifying by a margin of 0.2857 secs to confirm his status as the find of the past season’s championship.

Lining up beside Edgell on the front row of the starting grid for tomorrow’s 12 lap race will be Hamilton hometown driver Kayne Scott who led the qualifying towards the closing stages in his Fujitsu Heat Pumps Falcon while Nelson’s John McIntyre qualified the Talleys Falcon in 3rd after dominating testing and the early part of the single qualifying session.

Angus Fogg (Auckland) will complete the second row of the grid after setting the 4th fastest time in his LG / Newstalk ZB Falcon ahead of Christchurch drivers Andy Knight (Radio Live Falcon) and Eddie Bell (Independent Fisheries Falcon). They were followed by the first of the Holdens driven by Aucklanders Andy Booth (Big Ben Commodore) and Andrew Anderson (ITM Commodore).

Hamiltonian Simon Richards (Sew-Eurodrive Falcon) and Aucklander Paul Manuell (Orix Falcon) completed the top ten to be followed by Clark Proctor (Auckland), Nick Ross (Cambridge), Dean Perkins (Tuakau), John Penny (Taupo) and Darryn Henderson (Wellington). A total of 23 cars will face the starter in the weekend’s three races and close racing is expected in what is a non-championship Trophy Round.

With no points scoring to consider, drivers are a lot more relaxed than usual but have also declared they want to feature prominently in what is effectively their end of season hit-out. If qualifying was anything to go by, competitiveness will set the scene for the weekend in what will feature three sprint format races of 12 and 16 laps.

However, the meeting has not started well for some drivers as Wade Henshaw (Christchurch) was eliminated from qualifying early after a blown oil cooler sent him spinning and creating a red flag stoppage to clean oil off the circuit. Christina Orr was also disappointed when a faulty differential prematurely ended her day in the pits.

There will be three BNT V8s races held over the weekend with Race 1 (12 laps) set for an 11:00 am start on Saturday with Race 2 (12 laps) and Race 3 (16 laps) scheduled for Sunday at 9:15am and 1:15 pm respectively.

Driver Quotes:

Tim Edgell (Nelson) – Car No 26 – Chesters Falcon:

“It is always better to start from pole here especially after such a pressure qualifying session. The fact we are three-tenths of a second quicker than Kayne shows what a good job the team have done on the car. We are only a small family team with a small budget but we now have a tough job ahead in the three races.”

Kayne Scott (Hamilton) – Car No 99 – Fujitsu Heat Pumps Ford Falcon:

“I need to find another two tenths of a second tomorrow and the outside of the front row probably isn’t a good place to start. The guys will run hot and brake really late into Turn as it is a long way from the start so I will have to hold them out. We got 2nd here last year so hope to be competitive again.”

John McIntyre (Nelson) – Car No. 47 – Talleys Ford Falcon:

“We would rather have had pole but I messed up my best lap to be honest so the other guys did a better job. We will have to fight for it in the race as it will be a war of attrition. I don’t think qualifying here will be as important as the other rounds and even though there are no points involved, it is still important to be on the podium for our sponsors and fans.

ENDS

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