Tatnell Fifth at Final Round of Speed Week
WARRNAMBOOL – Brooke Tatnell and the Krikke MotorSport Team have maintained their series points lead with fifth at the final round of Wanless World Series Sprintcars Speed Week at Warrnambool’s Premier Speedway on Tuesday 1 January 2008.
The Toyota Genuine Parts/Cool/Maxwill driver was the 40th and final driver to Time Trial on a deteriorating track, and qualified 18th with an 11.092-second lap. He started Heat 1 from the inside of the third row, and ran fifth at the start, before an early yellow light stoppage. In the closing stages of the race, Tatnell moved forward to finish fourth.
The five-time World Series Sprintcars Champion started Heat 2 from the outside of the third row, and moved into fifth off the start. He made an inside move in the final corner to take fourth on the opening lap, and maintained his position to finish fourth.
With a points system heavily weighted towards Time Trials, Tatnell was forced to qualify for the Feature through the B-Main. He started from the inside of the third row and moved into sixth off the start, before an early red light stoppage. After the restart, Tatnell ran both the high and low lines, swapping positions in difficult track conditions between multiple caution periods. He finished sixth to earn a start in the A-Main.
The Krikke MotorSport driver therefore started the 35-lap A-Main from the outside of the ninth row, and powered his Toyota Genuine Parts/Cool/Maxwill machine into 11th in the opening laps. A damaged radiator saw steam blowing out of the Australia #1 machine, which caused Tatnell difficulty seeing the track. The problem was slightly alleviated during a yellow light stoppage, and he was able to battle for position after the restart. An open red-light stoppage with 12 laps remaining allowed the Krikke MotorSport Team onto the in-field to change the radiator. In the closing stages of the race, Tatnell powered his way into seventh, before passing another two cars on the final lap to finish fifth, and maintain his series points lead.
In summing up the night, Tatnell explained, “I guess we salvaged a good finish out of a terrible weekend. We just didn’t have a good Speed Week. Qualifying is so close right now, if we were one-tenth of a second quicker, we would have been third quick, but instead we were 18th, so the marbles didn’t fall our way this weekend. But we’re a better team than what we’ve shown, and we’re still in the Championship and we’re here to win it.”
Krikke MotorSport Crew Chief Pete Caporn commented, “We were good in Hot Laps. With our qualifying time, we missed it by a tenth, so we were way back there. When you don’t qualify that good, you’re behind the eight-ball. In the Heat races, the racetrack really wasn’t there and we weren’t great either, we were too tight all night. We just scraped through in the B-Main and got into the Feature. Then obviously unfortunately we had a radiator problem and we fixed that. When Brooke could see, he was pretty good towards the end, and we were lucky to scrape home in fifth. It was unlucky that Max [Dumesny] won, from the Championship side of things.”
Krikke MotorSport’s next race will be the two-night $50,000 to Win at Sydney’s Parramatta City Raceway on Friday 4 and Saturday 5 January 2008.
Krikke Motorsport merchandise is now available on-line or direct from the Team Transporter at each venue.
Brooke and the Krikke Team again thank their valued sponsors: Bunbury Toyota, Toyota Genuine Parts, Terry Shields Toyota, PWR, Mega Motors, Maxwill Race Engines, Cool Chassis, Mercure Hotel Parramatta, A1 Sign Shop, A. Lucas Spraypainters, GT Aluminium, Revolution Racegear, BR Motorsports, Vortex Wings, Valvoline, Fortron, Eclipse & BCM Motorsports Marketing
29 December 2007 - Jane Alexander
Released By BCM Motorsports MArketing |
