Porter Gets First Win While Ross Closes in on Bargwanna

Porter Gets First Win While Ross Closes in on Bargwanna

Throughout the season Hamilton's Bronson Porter has shown bursts of speed and talent which had yet to translate into a strong challenge for the NZV8 Touring Cars TL Championship until today.

Putting up an excellent race against top contender James McLaughlin from Lower Hutt, it was Porter who was the victor in the first race of this weekend's meeting at Taupo also moving up into fourth place in the TL class before the grand finale at Pukekohe next month where four races will bring much opportunity for the leading contenders.

It was McLaughlin who led for most of the race after taking pole in the Top 10 Shootout earlier in the afternoon and a strong race performance kept him in the lead until he started to lose grip on the hot Taupo circuit.

Porter was able to take advantage of this and the fact he and the team chose to set the car up for optimum performance in the latter stages.

"I was sat behind a group of four for a while, I was sat there because we had planned for the tyres to come on later in the race." said Porter.

Hamilton's Ian Booth remains in the lead after his fourth place with McLaughlin moving up into second ahead of Turua's Brad Lauder then Porter.

In the NZV8 Touring Cars TLX Championship it was Nick Ross who won the race to the chequered flag after yet another tough and exciting battle with main rival Jason Bargwanna.

Bargwanna was quickest in testing and took pole position in today's Top 10 Shootout but it was Ross who stole the lead at the rolling start this afternoon and managed to keep series' leader Bargwanna at bay until contact between the two ended with Ross in the dirt at the end of the main straight.

"Jason gave me a nudge, he didn't mean to but gave me a little tap at the end of the straight and flicked me off." said Ross.

Bargwanna was given a drive through penalty for the incident which put Ross back into the lead which he held with a clear margin until the end of the race.

"There was no intent in it, I was half on the inside of Nick, locked the rears and he came off second best, I wanted to let him back past me and readdress the situation, I slowed down but he was too far back from me." said Bargwanna.

With Ross taking the first win of the weekend he has made a small gain on the Australian's lead closing the gap to 53 points with six races remaining.

"We are chipping away at it and at least we have broken his winning streak and hopefully started our own winning streak." he said.

The action continues tomorrow at Taupo Motorsport Park with races at 11.20AM and 2.40PM with the latter being a longer race at 20 laps and will include the very popular mandatory pitstop for the TLX class where the teams must complete a wheel change.

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