Highlands Motorsport Park owner Tony Quinn and Australian V8 Supercars star Fabian Coulthard won the final race of the championship in front of nearly 11,000 people on the second day of the circuit's first motor-racing event.
Klark Quinn finished second in the 40min race with the help of another top international driver, Craig Baird. It gave the Australian enough points to win the six-round series.
Starting the race in the Darrell Lea Aston Martin Vantage GT3, Coulthard made short work of Friday's Australian GT race winner and polesetter Rod Salmon in the early corners. Coulthard eventually opened up a 30sec lead before handing over to Tony Quinn.
Baird had taken over from Klark Quinn in the VIP Petfoods Porsche GT3R at the pit stop and closed to within 6sec of the winner by the flag.
Salmon and co-driver Liam Talbot eventually finished third in their Audi, enough to put the duo on the second step of the weekend podium behind Tony Quinn/Coulthard and ahead of Klark Quinn/Baird.
Coulthard now has the official lap record with a time of 1min 34.575sec after Baird set the circuit's original track record of 1min 41.9sec during the official opening celebrations in March.
Dunedin's Steve Ross had a disappointing weekend, with terminal engine failure end› ing his run in a Mosler MT900, belonging to Tony Quinn, during Friday's first Australian GT Series race.
He was about eight laps in when ‘‘it just failed'', Ross said. Ross was meant to share the drive with Aucklander Clark Proctor in both races and the Highlands 101 endurance feature but the Mosler was unable to be repaired in time.
The first two races of the new Toyota Finance 86 Championship delivered two different winners.
Experienced touring car racer and NZV8 champion Angus Fogg, of Auckland, took a decisive win in the new one› make series from Christchurch's Tom Alexander.
In the reverse-grid race two, Fogg had to start more than halfway down the grid and Wellington's Jamie McNee won the race from Wanganui's Matt Gibson.
Fogg said the cars were so evenly matched that if he made even the smallest mistake, he was instantly on the defensive.
‘‘Miss a gear and two cars will be past you. It's great racing.''
