Baird on front row for Porsche race

Opening the 2009/10 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge season at Pukekohe this weekend, defending champion Craig Baird qualified for a front-row start in the Triple X Motorsport ZM Mad Butcher Porsche 997.

Fastest in early race weekend practise, the Queensland based Kiwi set second fastest time, a 57.251 second lap around the 2.84 kilometre Pukekohe Park Raceway south of Auckland, to be 0.129sec behind pace-setter Matt Halliday.

Fastest of the five-car Auckland based Triple X Motorsport team, 39-year-old Baird isn’t concerned about starting on the outside at the first turn.

“That’s the race line, so starting from the left of the front row is the better result”, he said.

“I would have rather been fastest, but with the short session there were so many guys trying to beat you in to turn one when they came out of the pit lane on cold tyres I never got a clear lap.”

While Baird topped the time sheets for most of the session, the progressively dropping lap times saw team drivers Daniel Gaunt (Placemakers/Hampsta Porsche 997) and Courtney Letica (Altherm Porsche 997) feature in the top tier.

Finishing fourth fastest, Gaunt echoed Baird’s start position comment, noting the late afternoon race largely negates the emphasis placed on qualifying.

Fifth fastest, Courtney Letica headed team bosses Shane McKillen (VnC Cocktails/Juice Bar Porsche 997) and Mike Morton (Indians Bar/Hampsta Porsche 997), setting eighth and 13th fastest respectively.

Today’s first race is the Mad Butcher 100, a 100 kilometre enduro that features a compulsory pit-stop where teams have to remove and place two tyres on the car using only two people and minimal gear. With double championship points offered for the race, the stakes are considerably higher for the team by introducing the pit-stop concept.

Scheduled to start at 5pm, the 36 lap race is followed by two shorter sprint races on the Sunday (8 November).