A slick start carried Angus Fogg to victory in the first race of the New Zealand V8 championship third round in Christchurch today.
Fogg was second in qualifying to fellow-Ford driver Kayne Scott but powered to the front from the outset at Ruapuna Park and defended his lead with vigour.
"I was watching for the green light and just went," said Fogg, who leaps from 16th to 11th in the series points standings with two races remaining in Christchurch tomorrow.
Scott held off the hard-charing Craig Baird to finish second in the 24-strong field while Baird was delighted with his podium finish after a dominant win in the Porsche GT3 Cup class earlier in the day.
"That makes three Waikato or ex-Waikato boys in the top three," laughed Fogg, who was originally from Cambridge while Baird, who now lives on the Gold Coast, was originally Hamilton.
Baird's swift move down the inside during the rolling start took him passed Andy Booth and John McIntyre in the second row.
Booth and McIntyre then battled for fourth and fifth place for virtually the entire 12-lap race with McIntyre getting passed Booth at one point, with Booth finally getting the honours.
Christchurch's Andy Knight and Eddie Bell finished sixth and seventh respectively with trouble-free races.
Scott was fastest in each of the three qualifying sessions, recording a best time of one minute 30.135 seconds.
The starting grid for tomorrow's first race of 16 laps is determined by the finishing order of race one while the final race is reverse grid.
