It was Round 3 for each of the ute series at Hampton Downs in Auckland and I was uncertain even up until late Friday night if I had enough sponsorship to cover the round. However with a lot of phone calls and perseverance I was able to scrape through and come away with two 5th places overall.

It was great to be back at Hampton Downs, I have had some great successes there in the past and was looking forward to the weekend ahead. Unfortunately we don’t have practise in the V8 ute class, but I was able to familiarise myself with the track in the SsangYong practice. Sitting at the top of the timesheet for most of the qualifying for the SsangYong, in the final moments I was quickly pushed to 7th as the freight train sucking each other along came through on the last lap. I was still happy to be inside the top 10 and knew I could push forward. After a tough race 1 of back and forth I was pipped on the line to finish 8th.

Jumping from one ute to another all weekend I had to learn to adapt quickly to each driving style and switch off from the previous race no matter the result. As I had never driven the V8 at Hampton before I was studying track maps and videos to learn gears, braking points and lines. I was able to put the LDV Porter Group V8 ute 5th on the grid for race one, which I was absolutely stoked with under the circumstances. It was back into the SsangYong for Race 2. The Waikato SsangYong was great finishing on the podium with 2nd place, I struggled with car speed but fought off the boys to hold my position.

I jumped straight into my LDV Porter Group V8 ute and carved my way through the field to drive from 6th to 3rd and the fastest ute on track in that time, with 2 laps to go my wheel hub collapsed and I limped home, It was awesome to have such incredible pace. Dan and the Stoneman Race Tech team worked late to fix car for Sunday’s events.