Current National Super Sedan Series leader Darren
Kane has managed to bounce back to
front running form after he recorded a third
place finish during last weekend’s annual Grand
National at Hobart’s Mountain Dew Ice Raceway in
Tasmania.
Kane and the Boettcher Racing Team had endured a
hectic lead up to the Grand National
event after they had a premature exit from the
prestigious Grand Prix at Latrobe’s Bendigo
Bank Arena the weekend prior when they suffered
engine failure on the opening night. The
team had to then transport a new engine down from
their Queensland workshop during the
week in readiness for the Grand National.
The opening night of the Grand National resulted
in QLD # 36 Boettcher Race Parts
supported Mazda RX8 pilot, who had in the past
won three Grand Nationals and that
included the past two seasons, clean sweeping
proceedings with three dominating heat race
wins from as many starts. The going was a little
tougher for the former Tasmanian native
during the second and final night when he had
recorded a sixth and a second in the
remaining two heat races and that placed him out
of position two for the feature race. In
difficult track conditions that caught out a lot
of the field throughout the feature race and it
consequently resulted in numerous stoppages. In
fact; the feature race was called with 40 of
the 50 laps completed due to track curfew and at
the time Kane sat third.
“It was a tough feature race and although we
didn’t quite have the setup we were able to
remain up the front of the field,” explained
Kane. “With the way my car was setup I was
really relying on momentum and the countless
amount of stoppages certainly didn’t help
that one bit and third place was where I ended
up. It was disappointing that we weren’t able
to get those final 10 laps in as it would’ve made
for a quite interesting finish.”
The focus for Kane and the Boettcher Racing Team
now is this weekend’s Australian
Championship at Latrobe’s Bendigo Bank Arena and
it’s an event that he’s managed to
capture on two previous occasions and he’s
determined to do it again.
“Unlike the Grand Prix and the Grand National
events, we won’t be flying back to
Queensland for work and that’s going to help us
prepare better for the weekend ahead,”
Kane said. “To be honest our preparation has
suffered flying back and forth over the past
fortnight and since we won’t be flying back to
the mainland we’re going to be in good shape
for this weekend’s racing, as all we’ll be
focused on is our race program.”
This year’s Australian Championship consists of
Wednesdays practice session followed by
racing on both Friday and Saturday nights.
To find out more about Darren
Kane and the Boettcher Racing Team visit:
