BNT: Andy Knight Manfeild Park summary

KNIGHT MAINTAINS STRONG V8 PRESENCE

Andy Knight of Christchurch continued his top form in the BNT V8s Championship as Round 5 was battled out at Manfeild Park, Feilding this weekend.

Knight finished fifth equal on points for the round alongside current champion Craig Baird after results of sixth and fourth plus a ninth place in the reverse grid race.

Another good weekend in the championship means Knight and the Century Batteries Falcon are still comfortably inside the top ten, currently seventh and well in touch with those ahead.

Andy, a former New Zealand Grand Prix winner at the Manfeild circuit, looked on target for a superb weekend when he was fourth fastest in the opening test session on Saturday afternoon. However the Century Batteries Falcon then lost its edge in the second test period and also into qualifying. Knight did still manage to make the top ten shootout at the end of qualifying and there he set a time good enough to place him ninth on the grid for the following mornings first race.

Come Sunday morning and the Century Batteries Falcon was back on song. Andy drove a superb race to finish sixth in a contest that was stopped early after an incident on the track. After an early battle with Andy Booth which saw Knight get past the former two-time champion the Century Batteries Falcon got shuffled back in traffic. However by the time the race was stopped Knight was back into sixth place.

Soon after the BNT V8s were back on track for their second race and Knight got a good start from sixth on the grid and fought his way up to fourth at the finish. The reverse grid race saw Andy work his way through the traffic again and after gaining several places he lost a little pace towards the end falling to ninth at the finish.

The three results on a day of torrid racing saw another good overall round result.

"It was pretty good, particularly when you look at how it all started," said Andy referring to the problems encountered in Saturdays qualifying session. By Sunday morning the Century Batteries Falcon was back to the way it should have been. It just had nothing in qualifying. I was shuffled back a bit in race one but overall I am pretty happy with the result here."

The penultimate round of the championship takes place at the Taupo Motorsport Park over the weekend of 11-13 March.

Knight is supported in the championship by Century Batteries, Parker Stores, Milwaukee Power Tools, John Jones Steel, Mothers High Performance Car Care and The Rock FM.

-source: knight/beer