Palmerston North’s Ryan Bailey continued where he left off at the opening round at Pukekohe by also claiming the overall win in the second round of the Mini Challenge at the Powerbuilt Tools Raceway, Ruapuna Park, last weekend.

Over the weekend, Bailey’s TKR teammate and former Lady Wigram Trophy Race winner Matthew Hamilton was the fastest driver, claiming pole position in qualifying and winning the first race. Bailey worked his way up to second position in the opening race after qualifying in fourth position, and also finished second in the second race.

In the third race things went awry for the previously dominant TKR drivers. A computer glitch prevented Hamilton from even taking the start, and Bailey struggled with brake problems, enabling Mark Maddren to take his second reverse grid win from as many races.

Throughout the weekend the mid field battle between drivers Gavin Yortt, David Grigor, Mark Maddren and Wayne Timms kept the spectators and the drivers entertained. In the opening race Grigor pressed Yortt at every opportunity but could not find a way past on the Christchurch track in the treacherous conditions – with Yortt eventually taking third place behind Hamilton and Bailey.

This weekend the two leading drivers in the New Zealand Mini Challenge head to Pukekohe for what can be expected to be an exciting conclusion to the season.

With the lead in the championship swapping twice between Taupo's Craig Innes and Wellington rookie Simon McLennan it will be Innes who goes to Pukekohe with the point advantage.

And it is quite an advantage with Innes 1101 points to 985 but this has only led to McLennan being able to sit back and relax before the final battle commences.

"Craig is the sort of driver who can have a very consistent weekend but he has everything to lose and I have everything to gain." he said.

The weekend at Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding was looking good for Simon McLennan and the M2 Motorsport team when they set times in practice up to 0.4 of a second faster than the other New Zealand Mini Challenge contenders.

Some intensive and rewarding test sessions at the Wellington team's home circuit prior to the race weekend had McLennan optimistic of closing the gap between himself and championship leader Taupo's Craig Innes.

However, when rain hit on Saturday morning McLennan found himself on the backfoot when the wet track closed down the gap in lap times between the field and with no previous wet setup data for the circuit was only able to set the third fastest time in the qualification session.

"Friday was a good indication of how fast we were - but it went and rained over night and come to qualifying we just didn't have the set up for it - we were concentrating on the raw speed of the car in testing and we just didn' t have the information for a good wet set up." he said.