Another Enduro Win For Team Castrol EDGE
| press release | 4 June 2013 |
| Tweet | |
With Round 4 of the Prokart Endurance Series being hosted by Bundaberg Kart Club for the first time provided a new challenge for the Teams.
With Team Castrol EDGE going into the Round as favorites after their dominance over the last couple of rounds, the competition was finding whatever advantage they could to knock them out of the winners circle.
Although the Castrol EDGE backed team didn’t do any pre race testing, their competition was doing the opposite. Team KNK had done 2 test days prior to the event, which included testing at the new Bundaberg circuit to give it their best shot of bumping off the Team Castrol.
Having not had the track time of some of the other teams they were able to again claim pole position in each of the 3 F1-style qualifying sessions in their MS Kart.
With the Nicky Laskazeski starting the 1hr Saturday race from Pole Position was able to take an early lead until slipping in behind Ian McMah from Team KNK.
During the first of the compulsory driver changes a lot of time was lost through the long Bundaberg Pit Lane while handing over to Alan Gurr. This giving Gurr the job of bridging the gap back to the leaders.
With 1 stop remaining Gurr had reclaimed the lead and pulled an 8 second gap over 2nd place. With a more efficient stop while handing over to Simon Ham for the final stint gave the Castrol EDGE team the lead with a sprint to the flag. With an intense battle between the KNK of McMah and the MS of Ham had everyone watching. As they crossed the line to take the flag Ham took the flag by 0.5 seconds over McMah after having to hold him out for the final 3 laps.
With Sunday consisting of a 6hr race Team Castrol knew that it was going to be a tough battle all day. Getting through traffic and strategy was going to be the deciding factor. Team Castrol decided to make a last minute change to their MS kart for the race with the aim of making it easier to get through the slower traffic.
Again the battle continued all through the day with only 1 second separating the 2 karts for the majority of the laps with the lead changing constantly.
It came down to the 90 minute sprint home from the last fuel stop with the 2 teams holding a 3 lap advantage over 3rd place.
With Ham starting the assault, a strategic early pitstop was done, as passing at the Bundaberg circuit was difficult. This put Gurr in clean air to try and build a gap over the #5 KNK kart.
With a little over 30mins left in the race Gurr pitted and handed over to Laskazeski with a 13 second lead over their competition. With both teams watching the clock count down and the gap vary between 10-15 seconds, as traffic became an issue. Laskazeski was able to manage the gap perfectly to bring the Castrol Edge backed MS kart across the line for their 4th consecutive win with Team KNK only 13 seconds behind in 2nd place after 6hrs of hard racing.
This gives Team Castrol EDGE extra 10 points to add to their championship lead over the #5 KNK kart. With the next round heading back to Ipswich in early July, preparation and changes will be carried out on the #153 MS Kart as they look to a track they have previously had good results.
