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| January 03, 2012 |
| Driver News: Hunter Brayton - Daytona KartWeek Report |
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 | | Hunter Brayton |
Hunter Brayton; the 12 year old Coldwater, MI native, competed in the WKA Bridgestone Manufacturer’s Cup Event at Daytona December 28-30 in the Yamaha Sportsman Heavy and Lite classes with the Birel America Team. First up was the Yamaha Sportsman Heavy class.
Qualifying did not go the way Hunter would have liked. He had some mechanical issues and ended up 30th out of 41 competitors. That would put him on the pole of the last chance qualifying race since only the top 29 were guaranteed a spot in the race. A timing and scoring problem delayed the action for almost 2 hours and when it was repaired, a decision was made to cancel the LCQ races and the pre-finals due to lack of time and daylight to get it all in. All competitors would race in all classes; Hunter would start the final in the 30th spot. In a very competitive 12 lap final, Hunter was able to move up and finish in the 25th position. Certainly not what he had hoped for, but given the circumstances he was looking forward to the next day and the Yamaha Sportsman Lite Class.
Tim Lobaugh, the Birel America team engineer worked on the kart and assured Hunter that better results were on the way. He was right. Qualifying in 22nd position out of 41 and just 4 tenths of a second from 8th position, Hunter knew the day was going to be much better. With the timing and scoring issues resolved, the officials still decided to cancel the LCQ races and let all competitors race but they would have the standard pre-final (9 laps) and final (15 laps) to improve their positions. Hunter took advantage of this moving up to thirteenth position in the pre-final with some great driving and fast lap times. His confidence was growing and Hunter was looking forward to just his second ever Yamaha Lite final in WKA competition. As the green flag waved Hunter immediately moved up 6 spots but a red flag for an incident on track on lap 3 stopped the race; Hunter would re-start in the 7th position. He had made a deal with his father that if he finished on the podium (top 5) or ran a sub 46 second lap he would be able to miss school and compete in the second WKA event of the season in Kershaw, SC. He was just 2 spots away.
On the restart he moved to 6th position and held that spot with Flinn Lazier and 3 other competitors right on his bumper. Flinn is the son of 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier, and he and Hunter attended the IRL Racing Babies program when they were just 1 year old! It is amazing how racing families seem to meet up in different generations. One competitor in the top 5 started to experience mechanical problems and Hunter moved into the top 5 and the trip to Kershaw in hand. Flinn and 3 other competitors directly behind Hunter had other things in mind; and with 2 laps to go Hunter made a small mistake coming out of turn 9 and they went past. He was now in 9th position and his heart pounding because he knew he had little time to get the positions back so he went into speed mode and pulled off a 45.867 second lap, which was good for the third best of the race (45.806 fastest race lap) and secured his trip to Kershaw in the deal made with his dad.
Hunter was disappointed he made a mistake but his father was more than happy to honor the deal they made before the day started. Hunter will also compete in the KPP Komet Sportsman Light class at Kershaw and beyond to help with extra track time during the events as Hunter has never raced at many of the tracks that he will compete on in the next 5 events in 2012. |
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