Timaru racing driver Corban Sprague has wrapped up his Mazda Pro8 New Zealand Championship campaign in dominant fashion.
A strong performance at the Euromarque Motorsport Park (Ruapuna) in Christchurch at the weekend meant Sprague held on to his lead at the top of the series to claim the overall championship win.
Going into the fifth and final round, Sprague was leading the championship by 228 points.
Showing no sign of nerves, he laid down the gauntlet immediately — qualifying on pole and recording the fastest ever Mazda Pro8 lap at Ruapuna with a blistering time of 1min 32.73sec.
He then dominated the first race of the weekend, crossing the line ahead of his competition by about 6sec.
Gaining the maximum amount of points in the first race eased the pressure heading into race two and three where the grids were decided by a marble draw.
In race two, hindered by a gearbox that was not liking fourth, Sprague started P5 and finished the race in P2, which meant simply finishing the third race would be enough secure him the championship win.
He started race three in P7 and despite the gearbox trouble, Sprague cruised to a P3 finish and secured the championship win.
After putting in another gearbox for race four, Sprague started P1 but got off to an average start and after the first couple of laps was run off the track and on to the grass.
Battling back from the back of the pack, he managed to put his head down, finish the race in P2 and secure the round win making it five round wins from five for the series.
Sprague said it was great to have been able to secure the championship win.
‘‘I’m super proud for myself, the team and all my sponsors to wrap it up, we’ve been trying to do it for the last couple of years and we were a bit unfortunate last year with a few DNFs.
‘‘To go and win five out of five rounds is something I’m definitely pretty proud of.
‘‘A lot of hard work, time and funding goes into competing for the championship. A lot of the hours are behind the scenes with car preparation and stuff that a lot of people don’t see.
‘‘The hours my dad and my mechanics have put into the car is surreal. I have to give a lot of credit to them, because every weekend I got to drive it, it was always super fast and reliable.
‘‘It has been such an awesome championship, I’ve really enjoyed myself with some great racing and great people.’’
The prize for winning the championship was a drive in the Australian RX-8 Cup series.
Sprague said he was very much looking forward to the opportunity to compete in Australia for the first time.
‘‘I’m not 100% sure with dates or tracks yet but it’s going to be super awesome to experience that over the Ditch and compare myself against some of the best guys in these cars.
‘‘I’m looking forward to it and I feel we can definitely have a strong result over there.’’
Sprague wished to thank his team, sponsors and supporters for backing him over the course of the championship.
