This week we travelled to Stratford for the north island champs. Conditions were excellent with no chance of rain. It was our first time to run the 1nz on the car so we were looking for a good result.
Heat one had us off grid 9. We made a couple of spots early but we were stuck on the bottom and struggled to make any real progress. We were unfortunate to lose a spot on the line and wound up eighth.
The reverse grid for heat two put us off grid 4 and with the track widening out nicely we were able to jump to the lead off the start around the outside and run untroubled throughout. We ran the entire 12 lap heat flat to the floorboards with an excellent car perfectly suited to the conditions at that stage.
Our good result in the second heat didn’t make up for our poor start and we were off grid six for the feature. With the quality of the cars in front of us we had a lot of work to do. We tuned the 1 car up and had a pretty decent piece for the 25 lap final. Again we had a killer start jumping to fourth around the outside, unlucky not to grab another couple of spots in the first lap as everyone settled in. After that it was time to get to work and our car proved to be pretty good on the long run but took a bit to get going. After a few laps we ran up to third place then a caution closed the field back up again. After the restart we vaulted to second but never really looked to trouble the leader with lapped traffic hampering our progress.
It was a good result for our crew but we know we’ve got a bit of work to do to challenge for the win when we come back in just under a months time for the Grand Prix.
Our next meeting is our first at home for the year with Friday and Saturday at Huntly speedway this 10/11 March, I hope to see you all there!
