koykka-wins-tense-season-opener

“That was some serious racing and this was a brilliant car,” said the 17-year-old Koykka who started from the pole. “The car was good and the yellow flag in the middle of the race bunched us up, there was some good pressure there from the other guys.”

The win marks the first for Cape Motorsports with the Australian-built Spectrum chassis.

Thompson, 18 years old, standing next to Koykka on the podium in his best F1600 finish to date, commented: “I could not keep up, and had to outdrive the others in the corners, that was a clean, fun race and hard fought. Matias deserved it, everyone drove clean.”

Thompson also set the fastest lap of the race, earning two bonus points.

Brandon Newey brought home the Bryan Herta entry third, after starting out the weekend with a scary suspension failure on Thursday.

“We had a good restart and were able to get past Colin,” said Newey, “but I made a mistake on the last lap that may have cost us the win.”

As the race developed, rookies Matias Kyokka and Garett Grist, Newey’s Bryan Herta Autosport teammate, separated themselves from the field, much like they have during the entire race weekend. Kyokka and Grist, also in a Mygale/Honda, ran away from 18 other cars as the laps counted down.

A mid-race caution bunched the field and gave Brandon Newey and Colin Thompson a chance to attach themselves to the leaders. With just four to go, the top four cars, all Hondas and aspiring drivers, were nose-to-tail battling for the win.

Grist ended up fourth in the last lap position shuffle with Jeremy Grenier, Art Foster, Sean Maisey, Steve Oseth, Andy Brumbaugh and Mike Scanlan rounding out the top ten

Foster was the first of the Ford-powered cars in sixth, while Tim Dunn brought home 11th for R-Sport, the team’s first appearance since the 2010 F2000 season.

Sean Maisey and John Nesbitt shared the CellMark Paper Hard Charger honors, both improving seven positions during the 12-lap F1600 race.

Roberto Lorena’s first F1600 start proved challenging, with the aspiring Brazilian finishing 15th with damage to the Quantum Racing Services Van Diemen/Honda.

The weekend concludes tomorrow, Sunday, April 15, with a 1:00pm local time qualifying session followed by a 4:00pm race. Live audio and commentary, results, photos and more is available on F1600Series.com

Race Results:
Pos No. Name Laps Total Tm Diff Gap Avg. Speed Best Tm Best Spd 1 10 Matias Koykka 12 26:18.665 - - 89.483 2:02.056 96.448 2 5 Colin Thompson 12 26:19.182 +0.517 +0.517 89.454 2:01.771 96.673 3 98 Brandon Newey 12 26:19.389 +0.724 +0.207 89.442 2:01.903 96.569 4 97 Garett Grist 12 26:19.494 +0.829 +0.105 89.436 2:02.171 96.357 5 12 Jeremy Grenier 12 26:31.732 +13.067 +12.238 88.749 2:03.709 95.159 6 21 Art Foster 12 26:41.746 +23.081 +10.014 88.194 2:05.879 93.518 7 41 Sean Maisey 12 26:41.924 +23.259 +0.178 88.184 2:06.148 93.319 8 72 Steve Oseth 12 26:45.295 +26.630 +3.371 87.999 2:04.262 94.735 9 86 Andy Brumbaugh 12 26:46.157 +27.492 +0.862 87.952 2:06.416 93.121 10 2 Mike Scanlan 12 26:52.067 +33.402 +5.910 87.629 2:05.635 93.700 11 19 Tim Dunn 12 27:09.933 +51.268 +17.866 86.669 2:05.694 93.656 12 50 John Nesbitt 12 27:11.049 +52.384 +1.116 86.609 2:10.948 89.898 13 01 John McCusker 12 27:12.304 +53.639 +1.255 86.543 2:07.668 92.208 14 07 Steve Bamford 12 27:21.210 +1:02.545 +8.906 86.073 2:05.958 93.460 15 17 Roberto Lorena 12 27:26.437 +1:07.772 +5.227 85.800 2:08.244 91.794 16 23 John Butkovitch 10 27:01.385 2 Laps 2 Laps 72.605 2:08.548 91.577 17 18 Dan Pyanowski 9 21:37.341 3 Laps 1 Lap 81.665 2:10.171 90.435 18 3 Joe Colasacco 8 18:13.061 4 Laps 1 Lap 86.158 2:04.635 94.452 DNF 76 Jim Lee 4 8:49.873 8 Laps 4 Laps 88.867 2:09.261 91.072 DNF 35 Russ McBride 4 8:51.021 +1.148 +1.148 88.674 2:10.559 90.166