Despite the bonnet of their Porsche 997 Cup S flying up and cracking their windscreen, Dunedin's Allan Dippie and Scott O'Donnell snatched a dramatic victory in the opening round of the South Island Endurance Series.
Competing in the three-hour race at Invercargill's Teretonga Park on Saturday, O'Donnell did nearly a complete lap with the bonnet up early in the race after an unintentional nudge with another competitor broke their bonnet pins.
The Invercargill driver managed to limp back to the pits where the ''boys were pretty quick on the repairs,'' taping the bonnet back down and the windscreen up, Dippie said.
They rejoined about three laps behind the leaders in eighth place but managed to steal victory by 2.5sec from Christchurch's George and Angus McFarlane's Porsche 997 Cup R, which punctured while leading the race two laps from the end.
The drama started during testing on Friday when Southland's Inky Tulloch slid off a wet Teretonga track and had a hard hit with the unforgiving circuit walls.
His magnificent Camaro GT3 was heavily damaged and, although Tulloch was uninjured, the car was ruled out of the weekend's racing.
The Tulloch Motorsport team headed away to dig its older Honda Integra out of the barn to at least score the bonus points for starting the three-hour race.
They were rewarded for their efforts with Tulloch and driving partner John McIntyre finishing an impressive fifth outright and claiming the class 2 (2001-3500cc) win.
The first 20 minutes of the race resulted in the the demise of a class 1 (3501cc+) favourite as the Corvette C6R of Alexandra's Bruce Davidson and Dave Garden became the first to suffer engine damage.
The ever-reliable Peugeot 106 of Dunedin drivers Ken Sinclair and Mike Ham claimed an outstanding 10th overall and class honours in the class 3 and 4 (0-2000cc) section.
In the series' one-hour race, Dunedin driver Brian Scott took his Corvette C5 to victory in class 1 (3501cc and above) after a faultless drive ahead of the Nissan Skyline GTR of Alexandra's Johnny Waldron.
The super quick AE86 V8 of Dunedin's Chris Henderson had unrepairable alternator issues during qualifying, but did a solitary one lap in the race to ensure he received the championship points on offer for actually starting the race.
Class 3 and 4 (0-2000cc) was won by Queenstown's Grant Aitken in his Toyota 86 after predicted class frontrunner Stu Black, of Dunedin, had engine failure in his Toyota Starlet.
