The 2003 Open Endurance Championship

Round 8 - 12th October
Daytona Milton Keynes

With both the overall and class Championships still wide open, there was much frenzied activity in the pit lane and the largest grid of the season were soon ready to roll, for this the final round of the year.

Qualifying resulted in an all Biland front row, courtesy of SRT and SCR with the Promax’s of Auctionmyigloo and Special Racing Projects making up the second row.

Within a few minutes of the start, the 7-lap advantage for the Pro’s and the World Engine class was implemented, showing the top four as Europelaw, Auctionmyigloo 2, Wacky & Trap and Catz. The Biland of SRT and the Promax of Loose Cannons had already hit problems whilst the Promax’s of Auctionmyigloo 1 and Misfits were rapidly eating into the Prokarts advantage.

Catz were the next casualty with a sheared kingpin bolt followed by Wacky & Trap with a similar problems, leaving just Europelaw and the world engine class Auctionmyigloo 2 at the front, with a diminishing advantage from an ensuing pack of Promax’s. With an hour gone, Auctionmyigloo 1 was up to 2nd place with the Thunderkart of Bad News now in 4th just ahead of the ProExtreme of Tecserve. 3 more Thunderkarts occupied 5th, 6th and 7th places with Misfits Promax, Aces of Aces A ProExtreme and Team Oblivion’s Thunderkart, rounding of the top ten.

At one-third distance, Europelaw’s Prokart still led by 2 laps from Bad news, after a long pit stop from Auctionmyigloo 1, Tecserve were now in 3rd place followed by the two Thunders of RJB and Blue Thunder, with Misfits Promax a lap down in 6th position. At the half way mark, Bad News had taken the lead but the top 5 were now all on the same lap with Auctionmyigloo 1 in 2nd place from RJB, Team Oblivion, Blue Thunder and Europelaw.

Team Slick then moved up to join the party and after the Promax of Auctionmyigloo pitted once again for fuel, there were now 5 Thunderkarts occupying the top 5 places. Blue Thunder, who were looking at a podium finish, then pitted for a throttle cable problem allowing Team Oblivion and RJB up into 2nd and 3rd places with Team Slick just a few seconds behind. In the closing stages of the race, Bad News started to pull out an advantage over the 4 pursuing Thunderkarts whilst Auctionmyigloo was putting in some stunning laps in an effort to salvage a podium place. With the chequered flag in sight, Bad News cruised home to victory and Team Oblivion got the better of Team Slick to give a clean sweep for the Thunderkarts. Auctionmyigloo managed a creditable 4th for the Promax’s in the dieing seconds and Tecserve’s ProExtreme came in 6th, which was all that they required for outright Championship victory.

Results

Overall Results of Round 8

Best in Class 

2003 Overall Champions

2003 Best in Class

Podium Photos

Report by Paul Bowler.

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