TKR drivers Ben Dallas, Craig Innes and Matt Gibson all performed well at the fourth round of the New Zealand Championship held at Timaru "Levels" Raceway on the weekend.
QUALIFYING
It was the third TKR 'All Black' front row for the season with Ben Dallas qualifying his TKR car on Pole for the third time this season, with Craig Innes 2nd.
RACE OVERVIEW
TKR development driver Ben Dallas, who is leading the BMW MINI Championship, went on to win Race One with fellow TKR driver Craig Innes winning Race Two and Three. Matt Gibson, in the third TKR car, secured his first podium for the season with a solid third place in Race Two, and a second in Race Three.
"It was great to see all three TKR/Pit Stop/Konica Minolta cars battling it out for the top three positions over the weekend. All TKR drivers were giving it their best, swapping positions throughout the weekends races which made great viewing for the public at the track and on television" said TKR owner David John.
After a tough start to the season, Matt Gibson showed he had the pace to run with the other TKR cars Innes and Dallas were driving.
Race Three saw TKR on-track for another 1-2-3 finish before the Dallas car suffered a significant power loss.
"Ben's car had an intermittent cutting-out which we chased all day Friday and eventually fixed, but he missed all practice sessions. An overheating issue surfaced Saturday in qualifying which we could not fix properly. However, the team did a great job to get the car through the weekend as far as we did. It even looked like Ben would finish the weekend with a reasonable result given the problems, but that was not to be as the car lost virtually all power with a handful of laps to go in the last race, with Ben dropping from second place to last by the end of the race. TKR will now have that engine repaired to ensure Ben can focus on the rest of the season without a repeat of these issues" said David John.
Despite the last race dramas with Ben's car, the results at Timaru see TKR moving closer to the overall goal they set at the beginning of the 2010/11 season; to finish in first, second and third positions overall, giving all TKR development drivers a podium finish on debut with TKR, and a championship win to go with it.
There are now two rounds remaining to achieve such an ambitious objective.
The next round of the Championship is at Manfeild Autocourse mid-February with the final round being held at Taupo mid-March.
CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS TO-DATE.
Ben Dallas 477
Craig Innes 471
Dan Bagnall 350
Matt Gibson 348
Richard Bagnall 279
Gavin Yortt 267
Jamie McNee 177
James Kirkpatrick 144
