Monday 29 June 2009

17 YEAR OLD V8 DRIVER WINS BIG AT KAYALAMI



-->
The Auby family – father and two sons - made motor sport history at Kyalami on Saturday in the WesBank V8 Supercar Championship racing by winning both events and finishing in the top three positions on the championship points table.
Driving sensation, 17-year-old Brandon Auby (ELT International Jaguar) won pole position on the official starting grid from his championship-leading brother, Marc. He set up a new fastest lap at Kyalami of 1 minute 39.434 seconds. On the second row was 3-times WesBank V8 Champion Hennie Groenewald (Team Timken Holden) and his team-mate Richard Pinard (Team Timken Jaguar) both lapping in the low 1 minute 40’s.
In the first race Brandon Auby led off the starting line, set up the fastest lap and won by 4.1 seconds from Groenewald, who is now making a serious attempt to win his fourth championship in a row. With just eight races to go, he now needs a lot of luck to make up the 40 points he is in arrears. He now lies in fourth spot overall on the points table.
The two Team Timken cars of Groenewald and Pinard finished second and third to show that they are back with a vengeance. Newcomer and the third team member and team manager, Carel Pienaar, who builds the V8 racing cars for them, finished his maiden race in tenth place in the 15-car field.
Father Deon Auby (ELT International Lumina) moved from 7th on the staring grid to finish 4th, with veteran Franco di Matteo (Varta Batteries Jaguar) moving up to 5th a few seconds ahead of Steve Smith (Cool Catz Jaguar). Marc Auby with problems slid back to 11th after holding 2nd position for half the race until a safety car was deployed.
Using the reverse grid for Race 2 to his advantage, Terry Wilford (Fuchs Titan Jaguar) passed Claire Vale (Gatorback/RAM Mustang) who has amassed a valuable 24 points this year, and tore away to lead for eight of the ten laps. Then Deon Auby passed him with 8 kilometres to go to record his second win in ten races. Danie Correia (LiquiMoly Corvette) from Welkom drove the race of his life after his elder brother, Jaco, went off on the Goodyear sweep. Marc Auby from 7th worked his way through the field. He got into 3rd on the last lap with a photo-finish ahead of di Matteo.
Larry Wilford (Fuchs Titan Lubricants Mustang) was back on form after a long lay-off with some quick laps and took 5th spot from the first lady of WesBank Racing, Claire Vale.
RESULTS :
RACE 1
1. B. Auby. 2. H. Groenewald. 3. R. Pinard. 4. D. Auby. 5. F. di Matteo. 6. S. Smith
RACE 2
1. D.Auby 2. D. Correia. 3. M Auby. 4. F di Matteo. 5. L. Wilford 6. C. Vale
POINTS POSITION AFTER 10 RACES:-
1. Marc Auby (108) 2. Brandon Auby (89) 3. Deon Auby (77) 4. Hennie Groenewald (68) 5. Danie Correia (67) 6. Franco di Matteo (63) 7.Jaco Correia (58) 8.Richard Pinard (49)
9. Wade van Zummeren (42) 10. Mackie Adlem (38)
*Photography: Motorpics.co.za