The team at J3 Competition Inc. is pleased at the results the team garnered during the past weekend’s CKI event held at New Jersey Motorsports Park.  With its team focusing solely on the KF2 and KF3 programs large gains were achieved in every aspect.

After a massively hard shunt during the fourth round of the WSK series in Genk, Belgium the unthinkable turned believable when Tristan DeGrand returned to his familiar Kosmic Mercury chassis for the event in Millville, New Jersey.  After spending nearly all Thursday and Friday acclimating himself to different seat solutions, the 2009 FWT KF3 champion buckled in for a fantastic run on Saturday and Sunday.

During Saturday’s heat races Tristan and the team focused its efforts on testing different solutions that secure an important setup for Sunday.  The team decided on two major changes for Sunday, which proved to be correct as DeGrand turned the fastest lap in Sunday’s warm-up by over four tenths of a second.

Sunday’s warm-up was followed by a great run in the pre-final where DeGrand ended finishing in third position, thus enabling a strong starting spot for the final.  Shortly after the green flag flew in Sunday’s final Tristan grabbed the lead and showcased his ability to fight through the discomfort for the win.  Tristan led a majority of the final until the last lap when a battle ensued with Taylor Miinch.  The two drivers seesawed back and forth on the last lap with DeGrand taking a solid second place finish and keeping his hopes high for the season-ending championship.

J3 Competition continued its assault with three drivers in the KF2 category (Benitez, Iguchi, Nelson). All three drivers displayed solid speed throughout the weekend.  Thursday’s practice sessions culminated with Jeremy Nelson clocking the fastest lap of the day at a 1:06.6 with teammates Shin Iguchi and Richard Benitez close in tow.The final practice on Friday sidelined Richard Benitez’s hopes for a good qualification as damage during an on-track altercation would force Benitez to move to a new chassis, which was unable to be assembled in the one hour window.  Yet, teammates Iguchi and Nelson moved forward with Iguchi gaining a solid second place effort while Nelson took fifth.

Saturday produced mixed heat results for the KF2 team, yet the overall speed of the team was increased heading into Sunday’s pre-final and final.  With two new tires on the right-side for the pre-final, all three drivers improved their speeds once again with Richard Benitez taking the fastest time of the pre-final finishing second as Iguchi took fifth and Nelson sixth.  Benitez’s time would subsequently turnout to be the fastest KF2 time of the weekend.

The final stated out with a turn two skirmish that ended Nelson’s race early and led to an exciting mix-up between the front runners.  Benitez quickly took second place over and set his sights on the young Felkins early on, however contact between Benitez and Ouimet led to a flat tire and bent axle ending Benitez’s bid for victory.  The final ended with Benitez in third while Iguchi took a solid fourth place finish.

Team Manager, Justin Stefani commented on the weekend:
“We are very happy with the progress our team made in New Jersey including the work carried out on our KF program.  In addition to the technical knowledge gained our drivers did a great job coping with the weekend’s conditions.”

For further information regarding J3 Competition’s Race Department or the 2009 Kosmic Racing Kart line, Vortex Engines, ROK Series Engines, IBEA, JHC, OTK Kart Parts, and Tranzformer please contact our sales department at; .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 814-864-1846.