A big field of OSCA competitors turned out for Round 3 of the North Island championship held at Manfeild over the weekend. A lot of interest was generated by the arrival of David Gunson’s fantastic new Subaru Impreza 22B and Roger Fawbert’s Chev Camaro. Roger is the current OSCA Champion from last year’s South Island series and set the fastest time in qualifying. The round, however, was won by David Gunson from Roger Fawbert with Brett Stratton from Hawera in his Sierra Cosworth in third. Championship leader heading in to round 3, Taupo’s Mike Thompson qualified in fourth but a blown turbo meant that he took no further part in competition and handed the overall championship lead to Chris Coleman from Hamilton in his Mazda 12A Turbo powered Mini.

Race one on Saturday afternoon had a starting grid based on the times from Qualifying with the fastest at the front. David Gunson used the 4wd to his advantage and got a good start from position two on the grid to go in to the lead where he stayed for the whole race. Roger Fawbert finished 2.3 seconds behind him with a big gap back to Brett Stratton. Further back Rob Mitchell in his Rotary powered Escort had a good scrap with the RX7s of Cameron Jones and Brian Gray. Cameron came out on top as Rob slowed with fuel surge problems.

The second race on Sunday morning was the usual very exciting reverse grid race with the faster cars having to pick their way past the slower cars in an effort to get to the front. David Gunson again managed to get to the front but it was very close. Less than 7 seconds covered the first 5 cars. Rob Mitchell was second with Brett Stratton in Third and fast improving Ashely Anderson 4^th in his Batman RX7. Derin Greenslade from Tauranga had missed qualifying and race one due to problems with his car. He initially looked like he was going to take victory but two spins took him out of contention eventually finishing a lap down. Also in the wars were Cameron Jones and Shane Barnes. Cameron was racing hard with Rob Mitchell when the pair of them caught Shane. Rob slipped past Shane and Cameron attempted to follow. The gap was unfortunately no longer there and Shane and Cameron crashed heavily with both cars sustained a lot of damage.

The final race of the weekend was a handicap. Roger Fawbert came through to take the win from David Gunson, Brett Stratton and Rob Mitchell. Neil Deighton held on to finish fifth in his Hillman Chavenger.

The full result of all races are available on the OSCA web site www.osca.co.nz.

The OSCA team now move on to the new 4 Round Kelford Camtech National OSCA Championship. The first round is at Timaru’s Levels Raceway on 8^th and 9^th January as part of the Mike Pero Mortgages Series. It will be the first time racing in the South Island for many of the North Island competitors. The series then heads to Ruapuna two weeks latter. At Easter the South Island competitors come to Taupo for the 3^rd Round with the final round held a week later at Manfeild.

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