MOTORSPORT: Denyer and Morcom endurance champs

TV presenter Grant Denyer and 24-year-old Sydney rising star racer Nathan Morcom are the winners of the reborn Australian Endurance Championship.

Limping into eighth place with an overheating Tekno Autosports McLaren 650S in the final round at New Zealand's Highlands Park clinched the title for the pair.

It completed a hat-trick of endurance successes for Jonathon Webb's Tekno this year after winning the Bathurst 12-Hour, another GT event, and Bathurst 1000 for Supercars in which Webb co-drove with Shane Van Gisbergen and Will Davison respectively.

Denyer's title is his first in motorsport since a state karting championship in 1997.

For Morcom the triumph came the day after he lost out in the Australian GT Championship to Klark Quinn, who took a third title in that sprint series – this time in a McLaren after doing it in a Porsche 911 in 2012 and 2013.

Morcom was stripped of victory in the first of Saturday's one-hour sprints at Highlands for punting Quinn on the last lap. In the second sprint, Morcom raced from last to first, but dropped back to seventh after his mandatory pitstop.

Craig Baird and late call-up Michael Almond won Sunday's Highlands 101 endurance round in Simon Taylor's Erebus Motorsport-prepared Mercedes AMG GT3.

They were the fourth different pairing to win in the four-round revived Australian Endurance Championship.

The previous day they finished first and second in the sprint races. Nathan Antunes and Elliot Barbour in a McLaren won the heat Baird and Almond didn't.

South Australian Almond, an experience Porsche racer, only stepped into the Mercedes seat, after Jim Richards and Greg Crick declined it. Owner Simon Taylor was ruled out of driving the car by a leg injury resulting from a crash at the Gold Coast last month.

Second on Sunday were Greg Murphy and circuit owner Tony Quinn, father of Klark, in an Aston Martin Vantage, ahead of father-son combination Andrew and George Miedecke in another Aston Martin.

Klark Quinn has announced that he will only race occasionally in future as he concentrates on his family with four children and the Darrell Lea confectionary business that Tony Quinn resurrected.

The GT category, controlled by Tony Quinn, will only race at two meetings with (V8) Supercars next year – Adelaide's Clipsal and Melbourne's Grand Prix.

The Australian GT Championship will comprise 15 races in five states (with Tasmania's Symmons Plains the addition in September, and including eight events in the Shannons Nationals) and the now-customary New Zealand at the end of the season.

The endurance championship remains four rounds – Phillip Island (May 28), Sydney Motorsport Park (July 9), then Hampton Downs (October 29) and Highlands (November 12) in NZ.

Penske driver in NASCAR grand final
Roger Penske may yet have more to celebrate in the 50th year of his mighty American race organisation.

One of Penske's NASCAR drivers, Joey Logano, is among the four competing for the Sprint Cup title at next weekend's final round at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.

Logano, driving a Ford, won today's penultimate Cup race at Phoenix, Arizona.

Reigning champion Kyle Busch in a Toyota was second and also made the final four, joining Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards and Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet's six-time champion Jimmie Johnson.

Johnson is vying to equal the record seven titles of Richard 'The King' Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt Junior.

Three Penske drivers – Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, Australian Will Power and Brazilian Helio Castroneves – filled the top three positions in this year's IndyCar series.

Back-to-back start for Formula E champ
Defending champion Sebastien Buemi is the runaway leader in the third season of the Formula E electric open-wheeler championship.

Buemi, of Switzerland and a predecessor to Australia's Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull's junior Formula 1 team Toro Rosso, has won both FE rounds so far, despite a grid penalty on the weekend, at Marrakech in Morocco.

Buemi started seventh after a five-place penalty because the fire extinguisher in his Renault e.dams team car was found to be underweight after qualifying.

Buemi heads Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi and Frenchman Nicolas Prost, son of the great Alain, in the series.

Maro Engel, the European who raced a season in Supercars for Betty Klimenko's Erebus Motorsport, was one of two non-finishers among 20 starters in Marrakech.

New Zealander Mitch Evans, driving for the new Jaguar team, finished 17th – a lap down and three places behind his Irish teammate Adam Carroll.

Image: Australian GT