Reid takes endurance title after

THE talent of two young New Zealand drivers was displayed in all its gutsy glory to nearly the very end of the New Zealand Endurance Championship’s threehour race at Highlands Motorsport Park on Saturday.

The almighty duel between Jonny Reid in the Audi R8 GT3 LMS he shared with Rotorua’s Neil Foster and Highlands’ head professional driver Andrew Waite, driving an Aston Martin Vantage GT3, kept the crowd on their seat edges for almost the entire final hour.

Using every available ounce of the V12 Aston’s aerodynamic prowess and straight speed advantage, Waite fought off Reid for lap after lap until in the final six minutes, when the V10, 5.2litre Audi’s pilot caught the whiff of locked brakes in front of him and pounced.

‘‘You only get one shot at a New Zealand title. I pointed the car on the grippy part of the track and put the boot in,’’ Reid said of the pass that earned him and Foster the national trophy in this winnertakesall event.

For Waite, who recently finished second in the Chinese LMP3 Endurance Championship and shared the drive on Satur day with his boss Tony Quinn, his time behind the wheel felt like a sprint race.

‘‘It was hard. I’m knackered but to be battling with Jonny out there, it was so cool,’’ he said.

This was the first year the Australian GT cars were not racing at Highlands’ headline spring meeting, but their absence did not dilute the event. Quinn said that the beginning