Manfield

DRIVER REPORT MAD BUTCHER 200
The 5th round of the Suzuki Swift Sport Cup was held at Manfield over the weekend and it was a steady and sucsseful end to what was a rough start to the weekend. Here's a run down of the Mad Butcher 200 for LG ZM Swift.
 
TESTING
We had a slight advantage heading into the round as early on in the season we were able to test and gain added setup prior to the round. The first session felt relatively good with the car clearly balanced through the infield but the time was not there which was a great surprise and a problem that we needed to sort. We couldn't find any immediate problems before the second session so testing was in a sense wasted - almost 1.2 seconds down on the leader! It was a tough start to the weekend.
 
QUALIFYING
Prior to qualifying Angus came to save the day. Foggy found the front brakes were sticking on which would put a huge strain on the 92kw Swift. A full caliper re-build was in order and it proved to make the difference with Barbara improving from the poor testing times to qualify 6th. It wasn't the best position to start but it was in striking distance of the leaders
 
RACE ONE
The very late Saturday race once again brought the weather factor into the play with a huge downpour minutes before the race. This played right into our hands as we have a good pace in wet conditions. It was a matter of staying on the black stuff and also out of trouble. Coming charging home in 3rd was a great result for the LG ZM Swift with the championship lead also extending through Ben's bad luck as a power shortage in his car caused his A.B.S to fail.

RACE TWO
The Sunday's morning race turned out to be a dissapointment as I made contact with Ben on the last lap with me coming up worse off. So it was down to the last race to determine the points difference we would head into the final round with

RACE THREE
Because of the poor finishing position in the previous race we lined up in a handy 7th position with Ben behind in 9th. It was a very tough battle to move through the field as the grid is now all reasonably equal in pace which is making for great racing!
With 5 laps to go we moved into the second position and began to chase down the leader but unfortunately we ran out of laps and crossed the line 2nd in a close battle.

OVERALL
The third race result meant we finished 2nd overall for the weekend with XXX Motorsport driver Scott Harrison winning the round, well done! With Ben in third this also meant we extended our margin to 29pts heading into the final round at Taupo Motorsport Park. This was a great result for the team considering my mistake in the second race.
 
BNT V8
This weekend again struck Angus with bad luck, his drive shaft blowing in the opening laps of race one which created a struggle for the rest of the weekend as he had to start from the rear in the following race. The team did show the LG Newstalk ZB Falcon's true pace in the final reverse grid race with Foggy winning once again!
 
 
Once again I must thank our ever loyal sponsors for their continued support. We cant thank you enough Suzuki New Zealand, LG, ZM,Tom Ditchfield Panelbeaters, Digital Mobile, Display Associates, Punch Advertising and  Pulse Performance Race Engineering
 
Also a big thanks to Richie and Myles for helping out over the weekend, cheers guys!