A teenage Timaru racing driver has secured a maiden championship win in his debut season.
A strong performance at Levels Raceway at the weekend saw 16-year-old Alex Sprague hold on to his lead at the top of the 2K Cup South Island Championship and claim the overall championship win.
The weekend got off to a less than ideal start for the young driver who picked up P3 in qualifying with only 61 thousandths of second separating him from the pole.
An average start in race one saw Sprague drop back into fourth place and with a breakout style rule in place, he held his position to pick up a valuable point.
The grid for race two was decided by a marble draw and Sprague found himself starting P18.
He battled hard during the race and made up 12 positions to eventually finish P6.
The reverse marble draw for race three was a bit more favourable for Sprague, who started P1.
He got off to a fast start and built a sizeable lead after the first couple of laps.
He managed the race from there and cruised to his first win of the weekend and first championship win in a real car.
Sprague said he was very pleased with the result.
‘‘It’s obviously pretty cool to have won the championship in my first full season of it.
‘‘It’s been a really consistent year where we have scored good results across the whole year.
‘‘I’m just stoked to be able to win my first championship.’’
He was very keen to continue progressing his racing career.
‘‘Nothing’s planned yet, but I’d like to potentially look at doing a [Mazda] RX8 season like [brother] Corban, or maybe Formula Ford.
‘‘Something out of those two would be pretty cool for the next step, but I’m not sure for now.’’
Sprague put the success of his debut season down to having the right people around him.
‘‘A big thank you to my dad for preparing the car very well and making sure we had no reliability problems.
‘‘That allowed us to consistently stay at the front, finish every race and just minimise any mistakes throughout the year.
‘‘A special thank you as well to Johnny Small for coming to every round and helping me out and obviously a big thank you to my sponsors and supporters for making it all possible.
‘‘I couldn’t have done it without them.’’
