|
Kiwi Sport Archival sporting news from New Zealand. |
|
After 5 years of trying, Rod Millen won the 2002 Silverstone Race to the Sky. He completed the 15km gravel hillclimb in 8:43 which was outside the course record held by Monster Tajima. The Japanese Suzuki team did not attend this years event after problems last year with reliability. Last years winner Possum Bourne was unlucky not to have another title when his 550bhp Subaru WRX hit a hole and lost a tyre in the first 3km. The event held near Wanaka in NZ's South Island is rivaled only by the Pike's Peak hillclimb albeit over a rougher surface. Lexus/Toyota at Daytona 24hrScott Dixon, Scott Pruett, Max Papis and Jimmy Morales managed a 10th place finish and 6th in class at the 2004 Daytona 24 hour race in the US. The team ran with the leaders for the first part of the rain soaked race and then had an engine temp problem that saw them lose a fair amount of time. The rain was so bad that visibility was often close to nil as drivers peered through fogged over screens. The race was red-flagged for a period of 3 hours around the 19th hour for safety reasons. "It was a good first time introduction to endurance racing for me, said 2003 IRL champ Scott Dixon. "Of course we all had hoped for a better result but the team will learn from this and prepare for the rest of the Grand Am Rolex season. I'd certainly like to try this again next year." The steady leader of the Howard-Boss Chevrolet-Crawford teamstruck mechanical problems late in the piece and handed the race win to Bell Motorsports' Terry Borcheller, Andy Pilgrim, Christian Fittipaldi and Forest Barber. After a convincing win in the September 2003 US GP at Indianapolis, Michael Schumacher was just one point away from a record sixth world championship. The German made the most of his intermediate Bridgestone tyres in the wet conditions and dominated after the first round of pit stops. The progress that he made was countered by the problems that championship rival Montoya faced. Montoya and Barrichello collided early in the race and the Ferrari driver was out. The Columbian lost time then but lost a lot more after being penalised for the incident with a drive through penalty that also threw out the timing of his stops in the rain. Montoya finished back in sixth spot which placed him eleven points behind Schumacher in the title race, givin him no chance in Japan. The other championship runner was Kimi Raikkonen who made a great start from pole but lost time in the wet when Schumacher's tyres came into their own. The Finn made up time in the latter half of the race and closed the gap to 18sec and a second place finish at the chequered flag. The main benefactors of the rain were the Sauber team who not only put Frentzen on the podium but grabbed fourth place as well. Frentzen led the race for a short time after making one stop less than everyone else as the weather changed, and as the faster teams made up time he drove carefully with a good measure of speed. Their points haul for the race moves Sauber up to around fifth in the constructors from a lowly ninth. |