Simon Richards put the SEW Eurodrive Ford back into the top 10 in the final South Island race of the season held at Timaru over the weekend

A predicted strong weekend at Timaru International Motor Raceway by Simon Richards proved to be right on the money when the Hamilton driver recorded his best finish in the 2010-11 season of the BNT V8s.

Claiming a sixth place in the final race at Timaru, which also ended the South Island leg of the season, Richards took the SEW Eurodrive Ford back home to the Waikato eager to continue his move up the standings in the upcoming North Island rounds.

"We're moving forward and that's a good thing. Timaru's a tight track to get past anyone, we were really happy with the last race and getting back into the top 10, just what we needed to give the crew some thanks for all their hard work." said Richards.

Timaru has a reputation for generating excitement from the BNT V8s with the Holden vs Ford battle turning to carnage there last year in wet and slippery conditions.

This year slippery conditions were again encountered but of a different sort when in the final race Craig Baird's differential split wide open spilling over a litre of oil onto the track surface.

This resulted in several cars behind Baird losing control and leaving the circuit to pile up against the tyre wall only to be joined by another flurry of spinning race cars soon after when drivers, although yellow flags where waving to slow them down, were unaware of the slick.

Richards slipped through the section of track undetered and remaining on the circuit but was hindered somewhat with his own close call.

"It was a good race and I was up to third before slipping on the oil. I came around the corner and the next thing I knew the front of the car was pointing the other way but I was lucky that I was able to catch it and gather the car up again, before that we were having a really good race with Nick Ross, Andrew Anderson and then me." he said.

Richards went on to take sixth place helping him to move up to 13th in the BNT V8s Championship standings with three rounds remaining in the summer season.

Earlier in the day Richards placed 17th in the opening race making his way up after starting from pitlane where the team urgently diagnosed and remedied a mis-fire in the engine which had developed in the race's warm up lap.

Richards made up further positions in the second race placing 13th from a start at 17th on the grid.

But of course it was in the aforementioned final race where Richards shone where in the reverse grid 22 lapper he held his ground through the dramas starting in fifth and crossing the line in sixth after a hard battle with oil and fast paced previous BNT V8 champions McIntyre, Booth, Manuell and V8 Supercar driver Jason Bargwanna.

The next meeting is just around the corner with round five held at Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding over the weekend of 12-13th February. This popular event is followed by round six at Taupo Motorsport Park 12-13th March and then a grand final at the ITM400 V8 Supercars Hamilton Streetrace 15-17th April.

ENDS

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