KYLE EVANS’ MAKING GROUND

HALF PRICE PARTS MEDIA DRIVER – Kyle Evans  – Photo: Pete Trapnell

Kyle Evans began his Hyundai Excel campaign for 2019 with a trio of top 10 finishes at the CAMS Queensland State Championship. The Morgan Park event was held across the final 3 days of March and the track became temporarily flooded in parts as 150mm of rain fell across a period of three hours on Saturday.

Evans has had little experience of wet track conditions in his fledgling career and quickly found out about the perils of painted lines and a wet bitumen surface when he spun on the slippery surface during the first half of qualifying. Kyle had posted the 9th quickest time and looked to move closer towards the front of the field, only to be thwarted by the red flag with barely a handful of laps completed by any of the 30 car field.

Race 1 was held during a period of heavy rain, with standing water and small lakes just another factor for the drivers to take into consideration. Kyle was slow off the line and dropped a few positions in the first lap of the race as he became more settled in the car. He regained those lost places and climbed into 6th with two laps left to run. He was caught by a large puddle of standing water and dropped three places as his Hyundai struggled momentarily before he regained one position for 7th at the finish.

“They were horrendous conditions,” Evans announced. “It was a race of attrition and I am just grateful to have brought the car back in one piece.”

Evans repeated his race 1 result with another 8th place finish in the Saturday afternoon race. Run in dry conditions on a drying track surface Kyle was much more comfortable in the car. Unfortunately, an issue with a nock sensor wire off the line, saw Evans drop to 16th as he struggled to find a gear. As the problem subsided, Evans was able to move forward and held the fastest lap until the final moments of the race.

“I felt a lot more confident, Evans said. “Started well off the line changing into second gear my clutch mechanism was held back by the nock sensor wire dropping back to 16^th place before I could find a gear.”

The final race of the weekend was held on Sunday afternoon, the 15 lap final was more than double the 7 lap journeys completed the day before.  Evans’ team cured the nock sensor issue and he made a much better start to the race. He worked his way into 5th place as he battled with a niggling suspension issue, but soon found further problems with the gearbox and lost the synchro mechanism for 2 and 3rd gear. Evans demonstrated a mature head as he drove around the problem and still managed to gain another place to finish 5th.

“I have made a massive improvement on my last result with many of our mechanical issues resolved. There is still lots to be gained on my starts and lots more left with learning about car setup,” admitted Evans. “I had a three lap battle with Brock Giblin and I am really happy to have come out on top.”

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