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April 1, 2004
Vorrath Wins Jacksonville, Florida Dueck third, Duerson second!
by Rhonda Mims-Brown
Sunday’s feature race honors went to Italkart driver, Vorrath. The karting and F2000 sensation who won last year’s season opener made the long trek from Vancouver, BC worthwhile once again for the Canadian-based team. It
was business as usual for Vorrath and David Carpentier, SKI’s new Tuner of the
Year. Vorrath qualified outside pole to Branam and locked in both the pre-final
and final race victory, but not without a mighty challenge from Branam.
As Branam landed pole again with Vorrath only one-tenth off in second, the duo
headed up the tight field separated only by 0.315 for the top six and 0.755
seconds separating the entire 14. The two swapped positions for the lead on two
occasions with Vorrath taking over with a handful of laps remaining. At that
point, each was strategizing on who would be positioned where on the final lap
at the end of the long thousand-foot straightaway. “I just kept focus at that
point,” said Vorrath who refused to give up the lead despite a drafting
advantage the second spot has at Jax. Being a cunning competitor, Vorrath
thwarted Branam’s plan for the last lap draft by defending the inside line and
keeping the win at bay.
“It was pretty exciting,” explained Vorrath. “Jonathan actually tried an
outside pass at the end there, but I just concentrated on not going too deep and
holding my inside line,” he added. East zone points; however, are predominant
for Branam as Vorrath will contest for the West zone honors and utilized the
Jacksonville event as a warm up to this season. Marcus finished third
seven-tenths down followed by Wiegand and Alan Adams.
Givogue was also strong again on Sunday, qualifying in fifth, grabbing a fourth
in the pre-final and was in that position when he seized with five laps to go.
Jamie Sieracki was strong in qualifying setting the inside second row spot for
Sunday with his Merlin-Pavesi effort, but struggled in the main after dropping
out on lap 18 of the 25 lap race.
In S1 Tyler Dueck place third in his first ever SKUSA Pro event. On Sunday, he
would Challenge Jordan Dick for the pole where he was only edged out by .05 of a
second. He would go on to place second in the pre-final and after a
disappointing start in the final, he would finish in 8th. However, it was still
a great weekend for the young developing Italkart driver.
In G1, Duerson, who competes with Italkart, finished out in second on Saturday
and third on Sunday aboard his Supersonic/Moto TM to Walls who made the final
podium spot on Saturday. Kutscher and Carter rounded out Saturday’s top five
with Kutscher taking fourth on Saturday and Carter placing fifth.
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