PA Motorsport and the K&N Macon MR8 Win Big at Silverstone National Circuit
- Apr 6, 2010
PA Motorsport driver Darren Burke took his K&N Macon MR8 to a very convincing round one win in the HSCC Historic Formula Ford Championship at Silverstone. The famous Silverstone National Circuit located half in Northamptoshire and half in Buckinghamshire, England, is best known as the home of the British Grand Prix.
Burke in fact won the race from the pole position, having qualified with an impressive time of 1.04.824. "I was pleased with the time but it wasn't a perfect lap by any means," commented Burke. Burke navigated a nearly flawless race around the 3.7 mile track in his 1970 Macon MR8 prepared by the PA Motorsport Team. Burke impressively increased his lead on all but one of the 20 laps (slowed once by backmarkers) to end up 26 seconds ahead of second place. "It's particularly satisfying taking the pole position by 8 tenths of a second as we have had to add over 12kg (14lbs) of ballast to the car to meet the new car and driver minimum weight limit. We have gone a tenth under our own lap record so far which was set last season before the car and driver weight limit was introduced. It shows that despite the additional weight we have made other improvements to the car," explains team owner Peter Alexander. "It's wonderful to kick off the 2010 Championship campaign in style with a dominant win." A few years ago, after purchasing, rebuilding and racing his first Macon MR8, Alexander was so impressed with the 1970 car that when the opportunity arose, he bought Macon Race Cars, complete with all of the original drawings, jigs and moulds, making them the Macon Works Team. During the race Burke also managed to find that elusive perfect lap he felt he'd missed during qualifying - he lowered his own lap record to 1.04.619. However, one of the most satisfying moments for the PA Motorsport team came after the race at the weigh-bridge. Some of the other competitors had been convinced that with such an amazing pace, Burkes K&N Macon must be underweight. All eyes fell to the weigh-bridge as Burkes Macon was wheeled on. Burke then stepped onto the scales with the car and it came to rest at precisely 500Kg. The new minimum car and driver weight is just that - 500kg or 1102.31 pounds. "To see the look on the other competitor's faces was great," recounts Alexander. "Some of them were convinced we must have been running underweight to enable such lap times, but we have improved various areas of the car over the winter, one of those being the K&N air filter, and every area counts." Round two of the Championship takes place at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire on April 11th. Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world. |
