John Whelan has qualified in his strongest-yet position, clocking a 1:03:561 to place himself 12th on the grid for tomorrow's first race at 10.05am.
In the top 20 qualifying session the Dunedin young gun was 1.299 seconds off John McIntyre, who just beat his 2005 lap record of 1:02:263 with a 1:02:262.
McIntyre went on to claim pole position in top ten shootout with a time of 1:02:400. He was followed by Angus Fogg (1:02:482), Tim Edgell (1:02:504) and in fourth place Craig Baird (1:02:633).
The production racing series first race went to Auckland's Simon Sceats after he pulled off a gutsy move on Queenstown's Grant Aitken.
Aitken had started on pole and led for the first half of the race but Sceats was shadowing him all the way. After trying and failing to stick a passing maneuvre going into the loop, Sceats bided his time and tried again a few laps later.
The pair were neck and neck the whole way round the loop but Sceats managed to just edge past on the exit and the entry into Castrol corner.
Aitken had a pleasing morning qualifying fastest in his Mitsubishi Evo 9. His time of 1min:07:102 was 0.391sec faster than his arch rival Simon Sceats, of Auckland and will put him on pole for the first production race at 3:05pm today.
As he says "one down, three (races) to go."
Allan Dippie used his Porsche GT3 qualifying to settle into the swift rhythm of the super-fast category. The Dunedin 996 driver clocked the 13th fastest time of 1:04:607, which put him 6.753 secs behind fastest qualifier David Reynolds on 0:57secs:85.
Dippie said he was scrubbing his new tyres in and was "ready to move up the field," once racing began.
Melbourne's Reynolds beat the lap record of 0:58:34 he set last year in his 997 and edged out current series leader Craig Baird by 0:007.
The Porsches have their first 38 lap race at 5:25pm today.
Dunedin's John Whelan has had a successful test session this morning in his NZV8 finishing up ninth. His time of 1:03:791 was just over a second slower than the lap record (1:02:263) that series leader John McIntyre set in 2005.
Whelan said his car was "a bit average" but he hoped the handling issues would be resolved by his second test this afternoon.
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