Archive for the ‘K1 Speed Irvine’ Category

K1 Speed Irvine Challenge GP

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

K1 Speed in Irvine California, held their second round of the Challenge GP Race series last Sunday. A packed house full of drivers all looking for that top spot in qualifying made for some great racing. Taylor Hays would be the top seed for the night posing a 40.883 second single Super-Track lap time, breaking the old record in doing so, to put him on the overall pole position. Qualifying remained relatively uneventful, and the main events would be where most of the racing action ensued.

D main competitors had a lot of new faces in house, all gunning for the top three spots on the podium. First time K1 GP competitor, Ioan Trayanov had an impressive showing taking the 2nd podium position, fighting off a tight nit pack of drivers, but was unable to catch Todd Lewis who took the first place spot with ease. Paul Akers would wind up in third to round out the top three from the D main.

The C main seemed to have the most racing action of the evening. On lap three, drivers were starting to thin out a bit, but unfortunately for Sergie Maffei, he was pushed into one of the walls by another driver which damaged the kart. The kart was swapped out for another and the group was restarted with a green flag rolling start which put everyone bumper to bumper with each other once again. It was difficult for anyone to find a place to pass, with drivers racing nose to tail with each other. Mike Kerkes would take the number 1 spot on the podium, followed by Shane Geivet in second and John Perry would wind up in third. The entire field would all finish within 1 second of each other making for the closest racing of the night.

Since qualifying was full of so many racers, a lot of the Challenge GP regulars wound up in the B main making it look like the main race of the night. The race remained pretty straight forward. A first time competitor, Christopher Heinrich would take the top spot on the podium away from well known racer Toby Rodriguez who finished in second place at the drop of the checkered flag. Michael Tekstra had an impressive showing taking the final spot on the podium away from a great competitor Bill Kreig. Bill is one to watch, as his time is coming for him to make a podium appearance.

A Main race action saw Taylor Hays take it from green flag to the checkered, to be the top driver of the night, basically running away from the group and not giving an inch to anyone who challenged him for the position. John Tanaka, who is another Challenge GP regular, would finish out the night in second place and Deward Bergenholtz would close out the night finishing in third. The rest of the group would finish in the same order that they qualified in, making for a very conservative race for the group.

This was a great night for all that participated, and this was one of the more larger groups to come in and race in the Challenge GP Series at K1 Speed Irvine. Our indoor electric racing karts combined with out Super-Track configuration makes for the best and most competitive indoor kart racing in Orange County.

Don’t miss out on round three on September 5th, which will be the half way point for this 6 race series at our location.

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Stunt Rider Tony Carbajal visiting K1 Speed Irvine

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

K1 Speed in the middle of Irvine, California was visited by professional stunt rider Tony Carbajal. Tony is one of the well known stunt riders from the TV Show “Superbikes” which is featured on the Speed Channel, and he is also on a new show dedicated to motorcycle riders called “Stealth Riders” which is also featured on the Speed Channel.

His stunt riding profession got started at the age of 9 when he got his first dirt bike, and his off road adventurers would continue for 8 years, up to when he got his license and bought his first street bike at age 17. After meeting others that had a strong passion for riding, and taking what he learned from his off road adventures, and applying it to the street, his hobby would turn into a profession. After multiple years of hard work and dedication Tony left the normal day to day grind to pursue riding, and traveling to various events and shows as a full time gig.

Tony’s riding abilities have given him a chance to work with the No Limit Stunt team riding with Jason Britton and Eric Hoenshell, who recently were performing in between events at X Games 16.

Want to follow Tony and see where he will be performing next – check out his web page

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K1 Speed Irvine Challenge GP Round 1

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Orange county saw some tough competition last Sunday as K1 Speed in Irvine hosted its 1st round, of the second half of the Challenge GP race series for 2010. A large number of competitors came out to take on the newly designed Super-Track configuration, which brings some newly technical corners and an all new high speed section to give drivers an all new challenging course to take on. With the points all back at 0 it was anyone’s race to jump on top of the overall points lead.

Qualifying would see the usual suspects battling it out for the top spot, with Toby Rodriguez taking the overall pole position with a 41.517 second lap time. New comer Chris Akers would start in second place with a 41.919 second lap time. John Tanaka came on strong to qualify in third with a 42.042 second lap time.

The mains were broken up into three groups, the C main qualifiers would kick things off with John Perry sitting on pole with a 42.031 second lap time, he was followed by Sergei Maffei with a 42.269 second lap and Steven Jasinki qualified third with a 42.273 second lap. JP would lead the drivers around for the green flag start only to have jumped the gun a bit and false started. On the restart John would lead the drivers around for a cleaner run into turn one with multiple drivers in tow including some new faces vying for the top spot – AJ Cook and Jeff Martin. Everyone was battling back and forth with no one willing to give up an inch to allow another driver around them. John would lead the group wire to wire and take the win followed by Sergei remaining in second for the entire race and Steven Jasinski would remain in third.

The B main drivers would be up next with long time K1 competitor Emilio Garcia sitting on pole with a 41.981 second lap from his qualifying run. He was followed by professional drift racer Joon Maeng, who qualified second with a 42.777 second lap. Taylor Hays, who also frequents the Challenge GP events, qualified third with a 42.920 second lap creating a very tight group that were all going after the top spot on the podium. This was the closest race of the night, even though the drivers would finish on the podium in the same spots they qualified in – the top three were only separated by a few 100th’s of each other. So that put Emilio as the winner for the B Main followed by Joon and Taylor sitting right off his back bumper to finish in third.

Racers finish off the night with the A Main drivers battling it out. Toby would lead the group around for the green flag rolling start and he would immediately run away from the pack after just a few corners. Chris fought off the rest of the group to stay in second, keeping veteran John Tanaka at bay who would round out the top three. The race remained very clean and consistent as he drivers worked their way around the new course.

This was a great turn out for the first round and the pace has been set for the overall points leaders. There are still plenty of races left in the season so the overall points leaders could change at any time.

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