Lobb Expects To Be Quick At Manfeild

Whangarei driver Caine Lobb is expecting to follow up his near perfect round earlier this month at Ruapuna with an equally impressive drive this weekend at Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding.

"We have been working on the car since the last round and we think we have found a couple of things in our set up that will make it a bit quicker." said Lobb as he travelled to the Manawatu for the fifth and penultimate round before the season final at Pukekohe in two weeks.

Taking 148 points from a possible 156 from the previous round at Ruapuna let Lobb make up some ground on the series' leaders moving up into fourth place and 102 points behind leading driver Matt Lockwood.

This round and next are both on circuits where Lobb has shown outstanding ability previously in his career. He has taken race wins and pole positions at both Manfeild and Pukekohe in the Formula Ford National Championship.

This weekend however at Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding is where Lobb has shown consistent speed in the past winning the Winter Series and claiming pole positions at his last two Tier One level meetings at the Manawatu circuit.

Lobb does acknowledge there will be some staunch competition to overcome this weekend in the form of the drivers in front of him in the championship standings Matt Lockwood, Simon Beirne and Mack Peach.

"I think Simon will be fast around the circuit after doing the Australian round there a couple of years ago and Matt Lockwood from Palmerston North should be pretty sharp too. The circuit isn't all that tight so the cars should go well around it. Our car has a mean set up now. We wanted to try a few things on it but we won't really find out if they work until we get it on the track this weekend." he says.

Lobb will be looking at securing his fourth consecutive pole position this weekend in the ENZED V8 Ute Series. To date he has shown excellent speed but with three dnfs to date is a little low on points compared to the other front running drivers.

Lobb is not without his surprises however and displayed this in the Formula Fords earlier this year when with two rounds left in the season made the jump from fourth place to finish as runner up behind team mate John Whelan. This was achieved after winning six races in succession, unprecedented in the national championship.

In the ENZED V8 Ute Series anything can happen and usually does and even if Caine Lobb does manage to claim his fifth pole position in a row this weekend, he and the other drivers will of course be subject to the marble draw to determine their starting positions for the three races.

Qualification positions are awared with points however with 39 for pole. The marble draw gives the drivers a random placing for the first race of the weekend which is followed by a reverse order for race two. For the third race of the meeting the placings are determined by the points of the first two races giving the quickest drivers the foremost spots on the grid for the final race.

This weekend the drivers will have test sessions on Friday and qualification complete with the top 10 shoot-out on Saturday but will run all three races on Sunday.