George Gamble won the first Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge of the weekend at Rockingham, taking the lead from a fast starting Gary Simms at the Tarzan hairpin on the opening lap.
Starting from third Simms moved to the inside for turn one past pole man Gamble and Mark Davies who was shuffled back to sixth through the opening corners in the wake of an ambitious move by Ollie Chadwick around the outside of Deene.
Chadwick moved up to third with the move and once Gamble had taken the lead began to inch up on Simms for second place, taking the spot with a more conventional move at Deene on the inside line. The brief battle that followed as the pair raced side by side towards Chapman allowed Davies to catch back up, racing back up their field after his lap one dramas.
The following lap the three went into Deene almost as one, Simms trying to prize second away from Chadwick around the outside. That instead allowed Davies to move up two places, back into the position he started the race in.
He would, however, lose both places once more on the final lap, Chadwick taking second back at Deene, Simms pushing him back down to fourth with a dive bomb outbraking move at Tarzan. Gamble, meanwhile, had romped away to a comfortable victory with pole position for the second race still to come.
Scandanavian rivals Frederick Mortensen and Dennis Strandberg had fought for most the race over fifth place at the head of a warring quartet. However, a spin at Brook three laps from the end dropped Mortensen to finish 11th and left Strandberg to take fifth alone, eight seconds clear of Callum Pointon.
Stuart Pearson led the G20 class from light to flag taking his second class win of the season by 14 seconds over Alexander Preston at the end of the ten laps completed inside the 15-minute time limit for the race.
There are two further GT5 Challenge races on Bank Holiday Monday, the first 15 minutes long once again before the 20 minute finale to the weekend.