Starkey Motorsport Win 9-Hour At E/Creek
Tweetpress release
Starkey Motorsport kart #46 has won the opening round of the Prokart Endurance Championships held overnight on February 18 on the Eastern Creek 1700m circuit.
After a very long and busy off season, all four of the teams karts entered were ready to roll out in time for the opening practise session of the season, all running faultlessly in the lead up to qualifying.
Above: The #46 Starkey Motorsport kart leading the fastest qualifier
With 33 entrants into the event, qualifying was always going to be a closely run session with kart #46 ending up in position 2 just 0.011 off pole which was taken by Horsepower #777 with the top four karts being only separated by 0.036! Our #48 kart qualified on the third row, with #45 in p15 and #47 in p17.
The race began at 11pm and the pace was quick right from the outset with the majority of teams lowering the benchmarks set from qualifying within the opening 20 minutes of the 9 hour race. The leading 10 karts were separated by no more than a few hundred metres well into the second hour so everyone knew that we were going to be in for a tough night.
Thankfully as the sun rose we were still well in contention running in p1 or p2 throughout the night and with half an hour to go the safety kart was called out for the stranded kart #6. As the green flag was dropped there were 4 karts separated by less than 2 seconds with half an hour in the race remaining with a frantic race to the chequered flag which we took by just 1.5 seconds at the end of 9 hours!
Above: 11pm race start
Our other karts of #48, 47 and 45 finished the night in positions 8th, 20th and 27th respectively.
After years of hard work, frustration and half a dozen different chassis, Starkey Motorsport were incredibly proud to be able to take our first win in the series using the Prokart F1 Chassis. Our karts never missed a beat all night and we can only put this down to working with such a great product and our very long and meticulous preparations!
We would also like to thank our sponsors of Ryan’s Auto Electrical, DKS Race Engines and Tom’s axle repairs for all their support, along with the team at Prokart who run a fantastic series and have given us the inspiration we needed to stick it out and turn the years of frustration into a result!
Above: Good morning chequered flag
