MOTOR RACING: Matthew Payne signed off a successful Toyota Racing Series campaign with another win and another trophy at Manfeild.
In the process of the win at Feilding on Sunday, Payne added his name to an impressive list of former series champions.
An impressive 25 per cent of the F1 field are TRS graduates and the FIA F2 and F3 championships are also bristling with racers who have competed and won in TRS.
Payne could be another significant graduate and champion in years to come based on his dominance this year.
Payne has won five TRS races since Shane van Gisbergen’s famous New Zealand Grand Prix victory at Hampton Downs, and is the most dominant champion in several seasons.
His performance is all the more impressive considering he had only raced in six Formula Ford races to gain the appropriate licence to compete in TRS before the start of the championship.
Sunday’s big trophy to add to the collection was the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy.
“This is actually a super special trophy for me,” Payne said. “I’ve looked up to Denny during my career and I know what he did in the older F1 cars. I’ve always known who he was.
“It’s been such a crazy year, coming back from Europe last year after karting finished, then getting into a car has been difficult. This series has been so good, and I’ve learned a lot.”
Payne won the final feature race at a canter, streaking off into the distance in the opening laps and never looking back.
Billy Frazer was his major challenger on the final day of the championship and inherited the win in the morning race due to a couple of time penalties by Payne for minor infringements.
But there were no mistakes from the new champion in the afternoon’s feature race. Frazer had no answer to Payne’s outright pace or his ability to put in a long series of fast laps in the second half of the race to hammer home his race victory.
His victory margin of almost 18 seconds was a crushing display.
Frazer had to contend throughout the 27 laps with Peter Vodanovich and Conrad Clark in close attendance.
Those three were able to gap Kaleb Ngatoa, who had to wait a few laps to get past Chris Vlok, who made yet another blinding start from the third row to get his nose into the mix near the front.
An error on the infield by Vodanovich on lap nine put him on the grass and dropped him into the clutches of Clark, who duly found a way past and into third position.
A flying Ngatoa then lined up Vodanovich and found a way past, only for Vodanovich to take the place back a few corners later.
Payne will race under the wing of another great Kiwi racing driver and TRS graduate, Earl Bamber, as he heads across the Tasman next week to compete in the Australian Carrera Cup championship.
“The endurance racing side of it is where I want to head,” Payne said. “Le Mans and Daytona are definitely races I want to compete in and get some good results.
“For now it’s off to Australia to see what I can do there.”
Results:
TRS round three: 1 Matthew Payne, 2 Billy Frazer, 3 Conrad Clark, 4 Peter Vodanovich, 5 Kaleb Ngatoa, 6 Chris Vlok.
Final championship points: 1 Matthew Payne 287, 2 Kaleb Ngatoa 229, 3 Billy Frazer 201, 4 Conrad Clark 183, 5 Peter Vodanovich 167, 6 Chris Vlok 149, 7 Shane van Gisbergen 105, 8 Tom Alexander 75, 9 Chris van der Drift 71, 10 Damon Leitch 54, 11 André Heimgartner 51, 12 Brendon Leitch 44, 13 Daniel Gaunt 36, 14 Josh Bethune 23, 15 Greg Murphy 22, 16 Ken Smith 12.
