Kiwi Karter To Go Head To Head With Schumacher

press release

In years to come it will be a classic 'pub trivia' question; 'which New Zealand driver competed against Michael Schumacher?' 

New Zealand has had several drivers - Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Chris Amon being the best known - compete in the Formula 1 World Championship. But that was years before seven-time world champion Schumacher appeared on the scene.

New Zealand has also had several promising young drivers rise up through the ranks of classes like Formula 3 where Schumacher's name first came to prominence. But that was either before the now 40-year-old German driver was competing - a driver like Aucklander Brett Riley - or after - Red Bull-backed Palmerston North driver Brendon  Hartley.

The answer?
Or at least the answer in 10 days time will be New Zealand kart champion Daniel Bray.

Above: Daniel Bray racing his Shifter kart in America
Fast Company/Team Aluminos

Bray, 22, has been racing Shifter (gearbox) karts in the United States this year and next weekend (Nov 21-22) he, Schumacher and a blue-chip selection of current US and European champions will go head-to-head in KZ2 class karts at a gala US season-ending SKUSA SuperNationals meeting in Las Vegas.

Bray, who on a flying visit home won the KZ2 class title at the KartSport New Zealand's North Island Championship meeting at Palmerston North over Labour weekend, finished second in the S1 support class at the SKUSA SuperNationals meeting last year and won the S3 class at one of the rounds of the ProKart Challenge North series he has been competing in in the United States earlier this year.  

That gave him the confidence to step up to the premier SuperPro (KZ2) class for the SKUSA SuperNationals event, though as he said over the phone from San Francisco where he is preparing his karts and engines for next weekend's meeting, he didn't know at the time that a driver of the calibre - not to mention mana - of Michael Schumacher would be joining him on the grid.

Above: Daniel Bray after winning at Infineon Raceway in the US
Fast Company/Team Aluminos

"It's definitely a big meeting, so in terms of the top kart guys from here (the US) and Europe I had a fairly good idea of what to expect. But Michael Schumacher? Honestly, I don't know what to say. It's amazing, overwhelming, incredible!"
Schumacher is not the only Formula 1 driver Bray will be sharing the grid with either. The first to confirm was the current Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Sebastian Buemi, and a day after the organisers announced that Michael Schumacher was coming they confirmed that they had also signed former Renault driver Nelson Piquet Junior!
Last year the SuperPro class was won by Belgium's works CRG driver Jonathan Thonon from top Canadian driver Jordy Vorrath and American ace Gary Carlton.

Thonon, who recently won the KZ1 (gearbox) World Cup title and who finished fourth at the 2009 World Karting Championships in Macau in October is one of the top current-generation karters that the three Formula 1 drivers will come up against in Las Vegas.

The driver who beat Thonon to the world title at Macau, Frenchman Arnaud Kozlinski , is also entered as is former world karting champion Marco Ardigo and top Dutch drive Bas Lammers.

How Schumacher, not to mention Buemi or even Nelson Piquet Jnr, will go against the likes of Kozlinski and Thonon is a moot point though Schumacher for one will not lack for practice. Since retiring from Formula 1, the German driver who now lives in Switzerland has well and truly returned to his karting roots, competing regularly and only recently finishing fourth - after contending for the lead - in a major race at the Wackersdorf circuit in Germany.

How Bray will fare is also a question his contempories back home in New Zealand are looking forward to finding out.

New Zealand was one of the first countries outside Europe to go with the 6-speed-gearbox-equipped, 125cc KZ2 class and the fact that the SuperPro class is run to international KZ2 rules means that Bray is intimately familiar with the power and handling of the 40+ horsepower karts and the grip levels from their spec tyre.

Also in his favour is the level of competition at home, where for the past four years he has been up against the likes of multi-time New Zealand champion Ryan Grant. A fortnight ago a group of New Zealand KZ2 class drivers crossed the Tasman for a major Australian meeting in Melbourne, with Grant coming out on top there as well.

Action on the converted Casino car park circuit in downtown Las Vegas which plays host to the SKUSA SuperNatiionals meeting each year starts next Wednesday (Nov 18) with further practice on Thursday, qualifying on Friday, heat races on Saturday and the finals on Sunday November 22.

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