By Leading Classic TT debutant Jay Lawrence proved formidable in the feature race at the 29th Greymouth Street Races, as the Carl Cox Motorsport backed, GSX-R 1000 Suzuki mounted rider secured a third successive Formula Greymouth title.
Regularly regarded amongst New Zealand’s leading pure road racing exponents, alongside feature race success he also emerged victorious in two of the 1000cc F1 races, along the way setting in the third F1 race a new outright lap record of 47.476 seconds.
Opening F1 class honours after an early race error from Lower Hutt’s Lawrence, went to Jamie Maindonald who edged out meeting specialist Ashton Hughes, by just 0.136 of a second.
Local favourite Hughes also during a quite tumultuous day at Greymouth, banked back to back Formula 2 victories, plus a trio of Bears class crowns.
Added stars to light up Greymouth included Bears Race 1 victor Heath Botica, Dan Jenkins winner of all three Buckets class races, plus Jonny Lewis who proved formidable within the ultra competitive Formula 3 encounters.
Looking back on the Super Motard races, it was former Mountain Thunder victor Andrew Rudd who proved formidable recording five wins from five starts, whilst Duncan Coutts also had the honour of going unbeaten in his class, scooping three successive Pre 89 Classic race wins.
Another racer to go unbeaten was dominant overall Pre 63-Post Classic Pre 72/Pre 82 force Chris McMeeken, emerging victorious three times after holding off tenacious challenges from Jock Woodley in each of the three races.
Overall a top class day of roads competition at Greymouth, which has celebrated in style it’s 29th anniversary of the meet which is more than worthy of being regarded alongside the Cemetery Circuit Races, as one of New Zealand’s premier roads events.
Words by Stevie Rial
