Burrows and Hopwood Push Kia to Podium at Daytona

Burrows and Hopwood Push Kia to Podium at Daytona

Contact: Matt Cleary, Sunday Group Management
media
(317) 908-2975-Mobile

(SPEED will broadcast the race on February 5th starting at 3:00 PM ET )
(Photo: Wes Duenkel)

Daytona Beach, FL (31 January 2011)– Clumsy contact from a competitor early in the Grand-Am 200 race weekend at Daytona International Speedway ended up having a significant effect on the event results for Adam Burrows and Trevor Hopwwood as the duo returned to Kinetic Motorsports for the first race of the 2011 GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge season. But despite the disappointing final result, the weekend still brought significant promise in the form of the impressive speed the duo showed in the No. 12 Kia Forte Koup as well as the strong result the team machine scored on the day.

Hopwood was behind the wheel when he was rear-ended during a practice session on Thursday. While Kinetic hustled to have the car ready to go for qualifying, there was some un-seen damage to the battery that prevented Hopwood from setting a lap time in qualifying. But instead of despairing at the deep grid spot, Hopwood relished the chance to do a lot of passing. Starting last in the nearly 80-car field, he was up to eighth before having to pit to make sure that a relatively small problem didn’t become a big problem.

Running on the 31 degrees of banking, Hopwood’s seat was falling to the side as he hit top speed. This forced him to stop for repairs and while the Kintetic crew worked quickly to bolt the seat upright, the car was several laps down when Burrows took to the track. But the car, which set the fastest lap between the two team entries, showed great pace as Burrows helped the efforts of the sister No. 10 entry, which came home in second to secure the first-ever podium for Kia just one year after Burrows and Hopwood scored the brands’ first race finish at Daytona.

“The race was a lot of fun coming from the back,” said Hopwood. “We definitely had the pace to come out of here with a top five. But I think the hit I took in practice yesterday is what broke the seat. It just wore it down and then the seat finally broke during my stint and that took us out of it. It was good to get a podium up there for the other car. Adam was able to help them out by drafting. It was a great way to start the year. Congrats to Nick and Andy, and hopefully we can bring some more success to Kia and Kinetic when we get back to Homestead.”

“I think really the thing that made the biggest impact on the weekend was the accident that Trevor had on Thursday when we got hit in practice,” said Burrows. “The effects of that we have progressively seen throughout with the battery issue in qualifying that sent us to the back and then the seat breaking in the race. Unfortunately we were always behind because of that. For the team to get the seat fixed in the pits was fantastic. They took the time to really make sure it was done right. I’m not sure how many laps we were down – maybe three or four laps down. We got back out there and the car was fantastic. Even with the accident, the guys did a great job getting everything back together. It worked really well and the car was quick.

“I saw Nic (Jonsson) was in front of me shortly after I came out of the pits and we were in the middle a little bit. I didn’t know what position he was in but I thought that this was going to be perfect to cover his back. Certainly for first race of the year, after all the hard work on the car and making it better through last year to come out in second place for the team is a huge success. Congrats to the team and to Kia, it’s an exciting day for the entire organization and we are looking forward to having more success this year.”

PR inquiries about Adam Burrows and Trevor Hopwood should be directed to Matt Cleary at Sunday Group Management; 317.908.2975 (mobile) or media@ sundaymanagement.com

For additional information:

www.trevorhopwood.com
www.konichamps.wordpress.com
www.Sundaymanagement.com

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