Pither On Pole For Test Match

Pither On Pole For Test Match

NZ V8 Utes Champion Chris Pither of Palmerston North set the fastest time around the challenging Hamilton Street circuit today to take pole position for New Zealand for Test Match 1, the first race in the V8 Ute Trans Tasman Test Series tomorrow.

Pither 'The Doctor' was in superb form in his ENZED Falcon, setting a lap time early in the session before an accident left coolant on the track preventing drivers from improving their times further.

Pither was .2772 of a second quicker than the fastest Australian today, Kim 'The Assassin' Jane in a Holden Commodore. Kiwi Colin 'Crusha' Corkery and defending Trans-Tasman Champion Charlie 'Handlebars' Kovacs of Australia will share the second row of the grid.

Both testing and qualifying were straightforward for Pither. However he did warn after qualifying, "we've got a couple of quick Aussies, Kim Jane and Charlie Kovacs in there. It should be a good race tomorrow!"

It was an early start for competitors today as the first test session for the V8 Utes started at 8.55am. Chris was fastest ahead of Jane in early testing, the session cut short due to incidents around the track. He then went on to set the pole position time in the qualifying session,

The first race is scheduled for 9.05am tomorrow with the second due to start at 1.20pm. Both are of 10 laps duration. The third and final contest over 14 laps is scheduled for 10.20am on Sunday morning.

The V8 Ute races will also feature in the New Zealand television coverage of the event on TV3. Race 1 will screen at 2.15pm on Saturday afternoon with the second race set to reach the screen at 5.30pm. Full race coverage of the third and final race will screen at 5.30pm on Sunday.

Pither's efforts in the Trans Tasman Ute Challenge at Hamilton will be supported by ENZED, KDTraining.com and Cairns Bins.

ENDS

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