The J3 Competition Race Department kicked off the 2015 season with its COMPKART Covet 3.0 chassis in Tucson, AZ at the opening round of the Rotax Challenge of the Americas over the January 10 – 11 weekend. With no prior testing at the circuit the team arrived on Thursday for its first day which resulted in a full day of wet weather testing, a somewhat unfortunate occurrence since the remainder of the event was under typical arid desert weather as to be expected. The wet weather testing did however, prove valuable in data collection and the betterment of the chassis technical knowhow.
With Friday practice yielding the only day of dry testing for drivers Michael Ilavia (DD2) and David Ilavia (Rotax Jr.) the team efficiently worked through the five allotted sessions completing the pre-set testing plan. Having recently completed a two day team test in Homestead, both drivers were immediately comfortable in the dry conditions with the COMPKART around the challenging and fast Tucson circuit. Both drivers were trending at the top of the timesheets with a large window of improvement left at the end of Friday, which gave the team a strong sign of the chassis performance.
David Ilavia started his weekend out with a solid effort in the top ten in qualifying in 8th place. With continuous improvement on driver development coupled with improvement on the chassis setup, Ilavia was able to take a fifth place finish in the pre-final, which was backed up with a fourth place result in the final just missing the podium while gaining the third fastest lap of the final. With an improved package all the way around, Ilavia bested his qualifying performance on Sunday by grabbing fourth place just a few hundredths outside the top three. Once again, the COMPKART paired with Ilavia moved forward in the pre-final with a third place finish leading to a solid starting position for the final. In the final Ilavia maintained the third position for most of the race until the later stages when a four kart battle ensued for the lead. This lead to Ilavia in second place on the final lap when he went for a strong pass in turn nine for the lead and came out after contact in second place at this checkered flag, unfortunately, he was penalized for the pass resulting in an official result of ninth.
Michael Ilavia, comfortable as a driver could hope to be in his new COMPKART Covert DD2 chassis, grabbed pole position in Saturday’s qualifying giving the brand a solid and motivating start to the event. After a hard fought pre –final and final Ilavia brought his COMPKART home with a pair of second place finishes, solid results in the debut giving valuable points toward the prestigious Championship.
“Michael had a solid qualifying effort on Saturday and two solid races, which proved our outright speed and after analyzing the pre-final and final events we quickly developed a strategy with the chassis material for Sunday. The change we completed was designed to improve our longer run pace while providing better stability and consistency, this later proved to be the correct solution.” – Team Management
Having sorted out all the details for the correct race pace, Ilavia encountered an electrical issue in qualifying thus, not allowing the result the team had hoped for. With the electrical issue solved, Ilavia took a solid pre-final by finishing in second place with pace a notch above the rest giving promise for a win in the final. After being shuffled around at the start, Ilavia drove his COMPKART to the front taking the fastest lap and after methodically sizing up the right place for the lead, Ilavia went deep and precise into turn nine for the winning pass, thus giving COMPKART its first international win!
Further Details:
All COMPKART and J3 Competition Race Department inquires can be directed to the hardworking staff at J3 Competition Inc. at 814-864-1846 or by emailing one of the directed departments:
Sales
Sales@J3Competition.com
John@J3Competition.com
Technical & Production
Technical@J3Competition.com
About J3 Competition:
J3 Competition Inc. through its COMPKART ™ brand will provide a full line of high-quality chassis and products designed and engineered for the Karting industry. J3 Competition is among the most successful Karting brands and companies internationally. J3 Competition will aim to deliver the COMPKART ™ chassis line to the North American market as well as customers globally in 2015 and beyond with unprecedented performance and service. With its content, B2B, and B2C websites presently under construction, please visit www.J3Competition.com along with all its social media outlets to stay up to date on the latest releases and happenings regarding the COMPKART brand.
