2010 TEKA Series Kicks Off At Orange

press release

teka orangeThe hospitable Orange club hosted Round 1 of The AKA Endurance Series. It’s no coincidence we chose to kick off the 2010 season at the same venue we ran at only 3 months earlier. Great track not too far from Sydney that brings awesome racing, accompanied by some really lovely people in the club.

A good number of Endurance teams obviously keen to be included in the Championship race turned up to compete. A bunch of familiar faces and some not so familiar! HellRazor #666, SIS Racing #55 were a couple of the newer teams and Team GOZO made a comeback after a long absence always looking the goods. Some well known lovely ladies got together to form the all girls team RAD Racing, employing Darrell Mitchell as chief engineer, Welcome all!

There was the return of the Briggs and Stratton class after building momentum last year, and three of the place getters in B grade would move to A grade for 2010.

teka orangeThe racing should be interesting across the 3 classes! With the Briggs normally needing an extra fuel stop the top A grade teams will come very close, I think we’ll see the two classes often compete for outright honors. With the winners from last year in B grade moving up it opens up the class for teams like Ice Tech, Palace Shakers, Benders JKR chassis and GOZO to name a few.

RAD Racing and SIS will keep them honest, and if Hellrazor sorts out their chassis I know they have atleast one driver who can compete for top spot!

In practice the usual suspects topped the charts with a couple of interesting inclusions. Dynamite starting the year well with team mates Buildline, 1st and 2nd quickest. In 3rd XLR8 weren’t going to be ignored with their new chassis, and Blind Men slip into the top 4 in their first drive of the B & S, well done!

teka orangeAs usual WAR in the mix being the quickest Honda followed by Blatt Racing and Baby Bonus (surely that’s run out by now)! Ice Tech topped the list of B graders in practice followed by Palace Shakers and Team Gozo with the girls in RAD not far behind.

Qualifying saw some minor changes in the B & S class with Buildline and Dynamite swapping places separated by 2/10ths. WAR were again dominant achieving Pole position in the Honda class followed closely by Baby Bonus and Blatt. Next were Grumpy Mongrels who were a team to watch moving up from B last year and showing a good turn of speed.

teka orangeBenders were quickest in B grade qualifying only 8/10ths behind the No 1 A grade kart, not bad!!
The racing was fast, smooth and clean! The Briggs guys set the world on fire for the first half an hour providing some spectacularly close racing with Sky keeping the others from running a conservative race with their early pace. XLR8 also fast until an off would cause significant delays.

After dominating early Buildline and Dynamite suffered non engine related failures and would begin an almighty comeback. Sky also suffering and Blindmen Racing remained consistent staying out of trouble, would they be challenged?

In A grade WAR and Blatt (who fought no more than a few seconds apart throughout the 09 series) would end up having a number of smaller problems each. The unbelievable thing is that after helping each other in the pits they would lose exactly the same amount of time on the track and literally fight for position in the run to the finish.

teka orangeOn the day though they couldn’t catch the quietly (but very quickly) achieving Grumpy Mongrels who with the fastest lap of the day take the win in A grade! WAR and Blatt would follow in that order.

Dodgy Boys also a great result coming in 4th in their introduction to A grade followed by EKA (back for a final hoorah) and a late charging Baby Bonus.

Ice Tech dominated their class and deserved a solid win in B grade. Palace Shakers with a good start to their year enjoying the spoils, an extremely good result in 2nd place.

Team Gozo showed they’ve got more than just good looks driving their way to 4th, followed by SIS #55.
In the end where the B & S class is concerned Dynamite and Buildline would complete the perfect comeback crossing the line in a form finish 1 & 2 outright! Blindmen held on for a well deserved 3rd.

The season is away and we cruise down the freeway to Wagga Wagga for Round 2!

Even more exciting is the news that TEKA will be running a long awaited night event on the 1700m International Track at Eastern Creek. To all who have access to an enduro kart get it ready and stay tuned!

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