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| March 14, 2013 |
| Team News: ART Grand Prix America Records Another Successful PKC Outing |
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The second round of the SKUSA Prokart Challenge saw ART Grand Prix America travel to the Willow Springs Kart Track. Fresh off a solid weekend of testing the week before, the team showed up confident with seven drivers looking to stand on the podium. Chase McDaniel joined regular TAG Junior drivers Brenden Baker and Phillippe Denes, while Travis Lowe and Andrew Wiener looked for better luck in TAG Senior. Rounding out the team were Steve Wiener in TAG Masters and Gianfranco Casadei making his PKC debut in the S3 category.
Friday practice saw all three junior drivers at the top of the unofficial times and the team was confident that putting multiple drivers on the podium was a goal well within reach for race day. Qualifying came and the three young pilots set the tone for a strong day by all timing in the top 5. Phillippe Denes secured his first front row start of his short career by placing 2nd, Brenden Baker in 4th, and Chase McDaniel surprised the pit with a fantastic 5th place effort. Looking to move forward in the heats while also conserving tires on the very abrasive track surface, the first heat unfortunately didn’t go as planned. Baker got pushed from behind over the back tire of Denes and both karts ended up crashed with severe damage. McDaniel managed to make it through the first turn trouble free and ended up moving up to 3rd while also setting fast lap. Looking to rebound with a strong second heat, the team repaired the damaged karts and both Baker and Denes were on a tear to get back to the front. Baker, a local driver from Palmdale, made quick work of the twenty kart field and was able to climb his way back up to 4th. Denes also had a strong run to battle his way back to the top 10 with an 8th place finish. McDaniel continued his fantastic day with another 3rd place and fast lap of the heat. With all three drivers showing the speed to battle for the podium, the twenty lap final was expected to be exciting. Chase McDaniel, making his first start of the season and with the team, was looking for his first SKUSA podium and things were looking great early. He was able to make an excellent start and by the end of the first lap he found himself in the lead. McDaniel led the first 6 laps before being passed by Baker and the two looked to set off together and run away with the victory. Unfortunately, they couldn’t quite break the draft and eventually the 3rd place driver caught up and made a very aggressive move that ended up crashing out McDaniel and cutting the best race of the driver’s career short, but nonetheless McDaniel made a statement for the future. Baker continued to lead, but struggled to maintain the pace to pull away as the crash earlier in the day had severely bent the chassis and was causing the kart to struggle off the corners. Baker drove the kart to the best of his ability, but eventually just couldn’t hold onto the lead and had to settle for a 2nd place finish, but another strong podium for the young driver. Denes in the meantime put in a great drive as well as he was able to work his way back up to 4th and had the speed to make the podium. All three drivers proved once again that the team’s junior program is developing into one of the strongest ones in all of karting.
Steve Wiener skipped the Friday practice day, but showed up energized and ready for a strong race day. Unfortunately, a black cloud seemed to follow the past TAG Masters champion throughout the day. After struggling with an 11th place qualifying effort, Wiener looked to race his way into the top 10. Both heats and the main he had the speed to work his way all the way to the top 5, but unfortunately on track incidents marred each session and cost him an opportunity to gain the result he deserved. Even though the results weren’t what the team wanted, the masters driver continues to improve each and every weekend.
After a difficult Friday in TAG Senior, the team went to work overnight to try and find more speed. Drivers Andrew Wiener and Travis Lowe were utilizing D Power Racing Engine Leopard packages, and pace was proving difficult to come by on the track being so favorable to Rotaxes. The struggle continued in qualifying as Wiener ended up 15th and Lowe 16th, but finally there was direction needed to improve the engine set ups and after lots of changes more speed was found. Wiener kept improving throughout each race and drove to finishes of 12th and 9th in the two heats. Amongst the fastest Leopards on track, the San Diego pilot was able to finish the main 8th after losing some spots late due to overworking the tires in the heats. Still, a great result for the experienced senior driver to finally get back in the top 10 after a tough couple of months. After qualifying Lowe was flying on track, but issues kept him from contending for the podium. After driving his way into the top 10 in the first heat, the carburetor worked its way loose and fell off on the final lap. Knowing the speed was there, the past PKC TAG Senior champion drove from 28th to 13th in the second heat and setting fast lap in the process, the only driver to lead an official session not on a Rotax. Geared up for the final, Lowe quickly moved into the top 10 and by lap 6 was positioned to crack the top 5. Unfortunately, a crash with another competitor left Lowe out of the race and with a disappointing finish.
Gianfranco Casadei was making his PKC debut and with his limited shifter experience entered the S3 Stock Honda category. The day started off rocky as the Brazilian driver stuck the engine in morning warm up and was forced to miss qualifying. Casadei didn’t let the start of the day get him down as he rebounded to take both heats and the main event victory, all with a very rich jet to conserve the engine. The first year shifter pilot was running very competitive times with the S2 classed drivers and will only grow stronger as the season continues.
“This weekend definitely had its ups and downs, but I can’t say enough for the team staying together and working so closely to try and get each driver to the front of the pack,” explained team manager Kyle Kuntze. “We got a victory and another podium, but we definitely are leaving a bit upset we didn’t collect more hardware. As we do each week, though, we proved to be even stronger than the race before and the performances of all of our drivers were remarkable. I especially feel bad for Chase’s tough luck, the kid drove brilliantly all weekend and deserved to be on the podium. A big thank you to all of our drivers, mechanics, and supporters for helping us to keep growing!”
Special thanks to mechanics: Keith Dees, Race Liberante, Troy Castaneda, Chuck McDaniel, Robert Baker, and Craig Lowe.
ART Grand Prix America is the exclusive North American importer for the ART Grand Prix chassis and is actively searching to expand its dealer network across the United States. All interested parties are encouraged to contact artgpamerica@gmail.com as well as any drivers interested in joining our race team or looking to arrange testing.
For more info on the team make sure to follow them on Facebook: ART Grand Prix America and twitter: @artgpamerica. |
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