National endurance title up for grabs at Highlands Motorsport Park

ON the same weekend that the V8 Supercars title will be decided across the Ditch, Auckland driver Jonny Reid will be chasing championship glory of his own at Highlands Motorsport Park at Cromwell.

Reid and codriver Neil Foster will be one of the fancied pairings to win the 201819 New Zealand Endurance Championship on November 24.

The top 20 cars from the North and South Island Endurance Series have been invited to com pete in the ‘‘winner takes all’’ finale at the Central Otago venue.

Foster won the South Island title with three wins from three, two of those with Reid.

‘‘Motorsport is pretty much a hobby of mine these days and I’m pretty lucky to still be racing,’’ Reid said.

‘‘It’s been great to watch Neil’s progress over the last few years with the support of a great team at International Motorsport. Endurance racing has gone from strength to strength in recent years and it’s one of the best things that’s happened to New Zealand motorsport.’’

Reid comes from a racing family and looked destined for great things when he finished second in the 2007 and 2008 A1 Grand Prix championships. But it did not all go to plan and the focus has been in different cars over the years.

On November 24, Reid and Foster can expect stiff competition from the reigning champion, Simon Evans, in the NZ Supertourer Holden Commodore, and John McIntyre and Simon Gilbertson, who won the North Island endurance series title this year.

McIntyre and Gilbertson will be racing a Chevrolet Camaro GT3 that won the NZ Endurance title in 2016. Reid and Foster, meanwhile, will be chasing their first title in an Audi R8 Le Mans Series.

‘‘In 2012 I drove in the Bathurst 12hour and won the class B category in a 2009 Porsche Carrera Cup car.

‘‘I really enjoyed the experience but I remember the Aclass GT cars passing me and it became a dream of mine to race in some of these higherend cars. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to race in a Ferrari 458, Audi R8 Ultra and now the Audi R8 LMS.

‘‘All of them have different characteristics but the LMS GT3 is a very special car to drive. It’s so refined and so polished and the straightline speed is incredible. It’s a surreal experience.

‘‘We’ll be heading down south looking for a win but it will be a real tight race at Highlands. It’s probably one of the rawest racing circuits in the country but I expect nothing less from Tony Quinn [Highlands owner and developer] because he’s got a real racing instinct himself.’’