The 2003 Pro Kart Endurance Championship

Round 2 - Daytona Sandown Park - 13 April

A beautiful spring day and a huge turnout set the scene for the 2nd round of the 2003 Championship. Qualifying went the way of Spencer Motorsport, from Grilli Corse with WMPC and Helicopter Services making up the second row.

Grid

Within a few minutes of the start, Spencers had justified their pole position and led the train of Helicopter Services, Bright-McGee, WMPC, Grill-Corse and Game-racer. At the other end of the field, disaster had already struck such prominent teams as SABL, SZR and Focus, all of whom would not recover from their unfortunate start.

With an hour completed, Spencers held the lead from Helicopter Services, Bright-McGee, WMPC, Grilli-Corse and AJB who now made up the first six. Game-racer pitted briefly which dropped them down to 19th and good performances from Eau-Rouge, TGRS, Grassroots and Axxent kept them all in touch with the leading group.

Helicopter Services leads the pack

Spencers were the first to fuel, rejoining in 6th place, Lakeside were the next casualty rejoining in 33rd place and Game-racer had impressively moved back up to 10th position. When everyone had refuelled and the leader board had settled down again, Spencers had regained the lead and were now some 27 seconds clear of 2nd place Bright-McGee. The midfield battle was also in full swing, with Gas-n-Go, Europelaw, Box-Tech and Spin- Doctors all vying for a top ten position.

At half distance, Spencers had maintained a 30 second lead with all the usual suspects taking turns at occupying second place. Game-racer had now moved back up to 6th position and was lapping faster than group in front, eventually reoccupying 4th place as the 4-hour mark approached. Helicopter Services were the next to have an unscheduled stop, and although they rejoined fairly quickly, it effectively put them out of contention, moving Eau-Rouge into the top six.

Mid field action

With an hour to go, Spencers had been putting in some fast and consistent lap times and had increased their lead to an impressive 2 laps over their nearest rivals.

Grilli-Corse were now holding 2nd place from WMPC, Bright-McGee, Game-racer and Eau-Rouge. Grilli-Corse then had to pit, dropping them down to 5th and Game-racer was gaining on both 3rd place Bright-McGee as well as WMPC.

Europelaw in action

With less than half an hour to go, Spencers looked certain for victory, barring a mechanical failure, but all eyes were on Game-racer. With 15 minutes left, they had displaced Bright-McGee and were only 10 seconds behind 2nd place WMPC, and gaining. As Spencers approached the last few laps before taking victory, Game-racer had closed to within 5 karts lengths of WMPC as the last lapboard was shown. With just 4 corners to go, Game-racer took 2nd spot, only to loose it back again on the next corner. As they came to the hairpin before the start-finish line, Gamer-racer dived down the inside of WMPC and they both charged for the line side by side. As they crossed the line almost neck and neck, the timing system gave 2nd place to Game-racer by 0.01 of a second to conclude a great days racing and there was general acknowledgement for an impressive performance from Spencer Motorsport.

RESULTS

Report & Photos by Paul Bowler.

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