Damon Leitch is eighth in the ultra-competitive Toyota Racing Series after the first round at Teretonga Park in Invercargill this weekend.
Qualifying proved costly for the young Southlander in his Post Haste Couriers Toyota as he struggled to put a good lap together during the session. While he was only .729 of a second off pole position that meant he was eleventh on the grid for the opening race on Saturday afternoon. The drivers in this field are so evenly matched that few passes were made in the race but Leitch managed to work his way past UK driver Jann Mardenborough and Thai driver Tanart Sathienthirakul by the end of the race.
From tenth on the grid in Sunday mornings race Damon again moved forward in the tough international field to finish eighth.
The final race of the weekend was the feature event, the Spirit Of A Nation Cup race. In a separate qualifying session for the event on Saturday Leitch had put the Post Haste Couriers car third on the grid, just .611 of a second off pole position. The race, held on Sunday afternoon, was an incident packed one and Damon was comfortably racing at the front of the field early on. A safety car period bunched the field up and then at the restart Felix Serralles of Puerto Rico and Alex Lynn of the UK touched bringing the race to a halt after Lynn’s car flew high in the air. Leitch was sitting in fourth after the restart until Lucas Auer of Austria ran him off the track as he made a pass at the elbow. That dropped the Southlander down to eighth place and he climbed back to sixth by the chequered flag.
However this is a very tough, very competitive championship and Leitch now heads to Timaru, the scene of his first race win in the championship last season, still well in contention.
