Kyalami.October 25 - Leeroy Poulter finished third in race two in his Sasol Nissan Fairlady Z (350Z) to keep his championship chances alive with one round remaining, at Killarney in Cape Town on November 15.
Following the controversial end to the previous round at Zwartkops Raceway in September, when the result of race two was protested by Nissan Motorsport, a Motorsport South Africa court of enquiry subsequently declared the Class A race result invalid and instructed that points scored in Class A in this race be scrapped. It was found that the clerk of the course for the production car category erroneously revised the starting grid and did not publish the revised grid timeously.
The result of this MSA decision is that the logjam at the top of the Class A leader board is a lot closer and fans can expect two thrilling races on Saturday as the title contenders give it their all in pursuit of production car glory.
The 2006 overall and class A champion missed out on what looked to be a certain pole position in qualifying on Friday after a class B car destroyed its engine dropping oil right in front of him on his first timed lap and he ended up eighth on the grid for race one.
Poulter was confronted with a cloud of smoke when the class B car destroyed its engine right in front of him. He missed the apex of turn one and went off the circuit in turn two, picking up gravel on his tyres. As a result he had to rely on his second lap, when his tyres didn't have as much grip, for his grid time and was unable to do better than eighth.
He finished seventh after a tactical move to drop him down the order on the last lap to place him on the front row of the inverted grid for race two. Totaling with result on race two, he was classified fourth overall for the day.
Team-mate Tschops Sipuka qualified 11th after encountering the same oil spill as his team mate in the second Sasol Nissan, but featured in a four-car battle for fourth place before finally finishing the first race in sixth place behind the Nissan Dealer Team Fairlady Z of Marco da Cunha and ahead of Poulter. He was fifth in race two after starting from third on the inverted grid and finished the day fifth overall.
With just two races remaining, Taylor (BMW) and Stephen (Audi) are joint leaders in class A with 128 points, followed by Fourie (Audi) with 127. Poulter (Nissan) is fourth with 116, ahead of Van der Linde (BMW) 106 and defending champion Watson-Smith (Audi) with 105.
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