Two AMR's looking to claim their prizes at North Island Endurance Series finale

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

An ‘all or nothing’ final round of the North Island Endurance Series faces the #52 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing crew of Darren Kelly and Alex Riberas next weekend if they are to lift the overall or Class crown in 2021.

Having missed out on that last year in the NIES at their first time of asking, the #52 have been determined not to let that happen again this year with a race win in round one at Pukekohe back in May, a P2 next out at Hampton Downs at the end of May before a further P2 position lats time out at the Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park in Taupo just over a week ago.

Despite those three podiums out of three for the AMR crew, they are now just being pipped by the Championship leading #22 Audi R8 of Neil Foster and Jonny Reid who have scored just that little bit better with two wins and a second to lead the #52 by just 5 points going into the final round.

With the Series also running a points system where you drop your lowest score (both cars having dropped 90 points each so far), the 2021 winner will obviously be determined by the results of next weekend and looking back to last time, the HoRT won with the #22 crew in second place. A similar result would tie them again at the top of both the Championship and GT-A Classes.

Also looking to confirm their 2021 Championship status will be the #111 AMR Australasia Vantage GT8R car of Steve Harrison and Shane Merlin who lead their GT-B class by fourteen points after a second and two class wins over the three rounds so far. They, however, have had to drop 90 points whereas the second placed car is just 14pts behind having only dropped 20pts with a DNF amongst their results!!

Despite being raced on the other side of the world, this year’s Championship has been streamed live via the Motorsport TV webpage.