It was a sweet victory for Whangarei driver at the weekend claiming two
wins from three races and the round win at the second meeting of the brand new
Formula Suzuki Series.
Finding his rhythm quickly at the one day only event held at Taupo Motorsport
Park, Caine Lobb took pole position at the first of a five round series
exclusive to Taupo where the drivers and machines aim to cut their teeth
through the off season.
Last weekend the Formula Suzuki Series had an opening meeting at Pukekohe Park
Raceway where Lobb also took the round with two wins and a second place.
Although Lobb has had plenty of experience at the Taupo Motorsport Park in
other formulas, the single day meeting meant there was little time for any of
the drivers to get fully up to speed before the qualification session.
Never-the-less, Lobb was able to post the quickest time beating his nearest
competitor Gene Rollinson nearly a second with a time of one minute 38.978
seconds.
Rollinson struggled last weekend with a technical difficulty, however he was
very much on the pace this weekend at Taupo giving Lobb a run for his money in
all three races as was expected.
The 24 year old raced a Suzuki at Malaysia's Sepang circuit a few years back as
support to Formula one.
Rollinson is currently leading the New Zealand Production Racing Championship
two wheel drive class and spent last season contesting the V8 Supercars
Development Series.
Auckland driver Daniel Bray who paced close with Lobb at Pukekohe last weekend
taking one win and two second places had a problem in qualification at Taupo
leaving him to start at the rear of the pack.
He was soon up behind the leaders and the three, Lobb, Rollinson and Bray put
on a great display of quick, clean driving for the onlookers at the circuit in
all three races.
In race one Lobb stormed ahead from the start and managed to maintain the lead
to take the win from the two Auckland drivers with Rollinson second, Bray
third.
Race two was made a little bit tougher for the Whangarei driver swapping the
lead with Rollinson throughout the race while the drivers displayed the
excellent drafting qualities of the Suzuki open wheelers travelling down the
long Taupo straight.
The cars showed how evenly matched they were with both Lobb and Rollinson
swapping the lead as they drafted each other down the straight.
Rollinson was victorious this time crossing the finish line just 0.188 seconds
ahead of Lobb with Adam Griffiths in third place.
Lobb now wary of Rollinson managed to pull a gap in the final race between himself
and the talented touring car driver as the trio, which again included Bray,
displayed their prowess in the new formula seperating themselves from the rest
of the field.
The spectators were offered yet another fine performance of close, clean racing
by the talented drivers as they displayed what the new cars had to offer around
the varied, technical Taupo circuit.
Lobb crossed the finish line 1.286 seconds ahead of Rollinson with Bray 0.436
behind his fellow Aucklander.
"I had quite a bit of trouble with cold tyres on the car - we run quite a
bit of camber on them and it can be hard getting heat into the back tyres which
means there is a lot of oversteer at the start of a race." said Lobb.
"We had a lot of good feedback about how the racing between the top three
cars and how they were really interesting to watch - it was really clean racing
- in the second race Gene and I were swapping places and he eventually finished
in front of me." he said.
Founder of the Formula Suzuki Series Kevin Varney was very pleased at the
weekend to see just how fair the racing was and how compatible the cars were
with each other.
The day at Taupo and a further four rounds at the circuit will be instrumental
for the drivers and teams to become familiar with the capabilities of the
Formula Suzuki cars.
Caine Lobb will next be racing when he returns to duty with the Mark Cromie
Holden Racing Team for the ENZED V8 Ute Series at the weekend of 6-8th March at
Ruapuna followed by Timaru then Teretonga in a blinding three consecutive
weekends of back to back racing.
The series then returns to the North Island for the final at Pukekohe in the
first weekend of May.
Currently Lobb is holding third position in that series.
Next up for Lobb and the Formula Suzuki Series is Manfeild Autocourse on March
the 27-29th where they will take part in a Motorsport NZ tier two meeting
before returning to the remainder of the five round Taupo series.
