For Immediate Release: Montreal’s Dan Kruger and his Kawasaki ZX-10R led the his team to another victory this past weekend in the 3 Hour Endurance Championship. On a cold but sunny weekend in China, the annual 3 Hour Superbike Endurance took place at the Zhuhai International Circuit. With 34 riders entered from at least seven countries, it was a good turnout. Temperatures dipped down to seven degrees Celsius, keeping the track slippery, but with the sun shining, the event was a success.
“I had a fast crash heading into Turn 1 on my second lap of official practice,” said Kruger. “The track temperature combined with my tire temperature simply didn’t give me the grip I usually have at this circuit. I tucked the front end when I went for the brakes at around 220 km/h and went down on the same side as my September pelvis injury. It hurt a lot, but no real damage was done.”
The following day saw Kruger take an easy pole with a 1:379 in very cold conditions. He managed that time on his first flying lap and immediately parked the bike and called it a day. YES Yamaha could only manage a 1:40 flat in the brisk conditions.
The Endurance race started Sunday at 9am, and again the temperature was below 10 degrees, but with sunny skies, the race was on. Kruger was leading the race by the second corner and almost high-sided in Turn 4. When he pitted for a rider change and fuel on Lap 18, the team had a 30 second lead over the next Superbike. Dan’s teammate for this even was the UK’s Geoffery Ian Mark Giles and shortly after he started his first stint, the pace car came out due to a multi-bike accident and that eliminated the nice lead the team had built up.
The rest of the event was fairly uneventful and the team strategy was to have Kruger run the maximum amount of time allowed, which was 45 minutes at a time with a 15 minute break between stints.
“We wanted to win this event for Kawasaki again this year and end the season on a winning note,” Kruger noted post-race. “My lap times were quite a bit quicker than my teammate, so I ended up riding the maximum allowed per the rules.”
With lap times dropping as the track warmed up, Kruger managed a best lap of 1:376 towards the end of the race. The team did a flawless job with fuel and tire changes and the Kawasaki ran better than ever in the cool weather.
The win completed a very good season for the team and also positioned them as the team to beat heading into 2014.
Dan Kruger Racing would like to thank all of its sponsors for their support in 2013: Kawasaki, Motul, Titanic, Pirelli, RK, OZ, Spidi, Vemar, Moto-Tron, Hindle, Team J-P, Dogfight, and Nature Power. “See you all at the track in 2014.”
— By dankrugerracing.com
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