AUTO Friday, August 12, 2011
Gore last week told Auto that his aim, after having tweaked his Audi racing machine was to break the Dover record, then held by his main rival Summerbell.
  ATL Racing’s record breaking team, happy in the paddock last Sunday. From left Neil Gore, Logistical Manager David Bell, Ace driver Doug ‘Hollywood’ Gore, Sandals/ATL deputy chairman Adam Stewart, ATL Autohaus master technician for Audi and Volkswagen Tony Love, mechanic Stephen Silvera and ATL Autohaus technician Adrian Whyte.
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Project Leader for the DTM cars at ABT Sportsline, Franco Chiocchetti, who travelled to the island from Germany to make the adjustments to the Audi, believes power is nothing without balance.
“We made Doug comfortable in his environment and gave him a balance that was always predictable so that he knows what to expect from the car when he pushes the limits, and does not get too many surprises at every corner,” said Chiocchetti. “This balance gives the confidence to get to the limits of the car and go for the track record.”
The DTM race car lived up to the expectations of the ATL Racing crew Sunday and paraded its superb German engineering to fans, while shaving time off Gore’s and all previous performances, as promised.
Adjustments to the shock absorbers and tire pressure propelled the Audi to its record-breaking run with the enhanced braking system working wonders for Gore’s control on the Dover track.
Now extremely comfortable in his TT missile, Gore went on to commandeer the track record, and the Independence of Speed MP4 and Thundersport2 class championship awards. Gore is presently leading the point standing for the 2011 MP4 class Championship.
Tony Love, master technician for Audi and Volkswagen at ATL Autohaus has been following Gore’s progress from the debut of the Audi racecar on local soil — and he is very pleased with the ownership of the track record.
“From the beginning I saw how Doug struggled with the car, he is coming from a four wheel drive car to a completely different rear wheel drive car, and a very different engine,” he shared. "The DTM cars are very difficult to drive and his breaking of the track record shows that he is a very brave man and a really good driver" Love added.
“We made some modifications to the TT and Doug worked very hard to achieve this feat. The Audi didn’t just win the race, it annihilated Summerbell and I’m really happy for the entire team. The lap record is ours and it’s a real milestone for us,” said Love.
Being familiar with the history of the Audi TT DTM and its advanced mechanical and technological engineering, Love believes that the car can go 1 minute 17 seconds on the Dover track.
“There’s definitely more we can do and we are gearing up for it. Look out for Doug and the Audi maybe October, maybe next year, but we are
definitely going for 1.17,” he told Auto.
A very proud Adam Stewart, CEO of ATL Automotive, highlighted Audi’s reliability as one of the factors that contributed to the shattering of Summerbell’s record.
“Audi is winning worldwide, we beat Mercedes in local sales by a long shot and we beat them worldwide in sales as well. Audi is on track to overtake BMW worldwide by 2015, and now Audi is winning at Dover,” said an elated Stewart.
“The brand is surrounded by technology and reliability and Audi motorsports paves the way for technologically advanced consumer cars,” he added.
“I want to big up Doug; it’s an absolute pleasure to work with him as a friend and as a business partner. I always knew that if given the right equipment, he would prove himself to be the number one driver, now he has dominated the track,” Stewart told Auto.
Friday, August 12, 2011
STEFAN Chin who set a new lap time in the motor cycle clocking 1 minute 22.80 erasing Guyanese Kevin Graham’s time of 1 minute 22.93 last Saturday, upped his performance on Sunday winning two of the cycle races.
“It’s a rewarding experience breaking the track record I feel pretty good; I was within a second of breaking the record again, but I have Barbados to go and my bike has to leave this weekend,” Chin told Auto. “I don’t want anything to happen so I took it easy,”
 Stefan Chin
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With the Caribbean Motor Racing Championships (CMRC) second leg in Barbados at the end of August, Chin chose not to take any chances with the bike during the race meet, and rode comfortably to victory in two of the Motorcycle A (MCA) races. Chin did not compete in the third MCA race as the bike suffered a broken rev cable that could not have been fixed in time.
With the three top riders, Halquin Rodney, Stefan Chin and Adrian Blake in a tight race for the MCA Championship, with 37, 35 and 32 points respectively, Chin knows the October Dover race meet will be very competitive.
“It’s all going to come down to October, the Championship is very close and October will be the deciding race meet” he said.
“I have been away for a while and I started riding at Dover in 2000 and this is my twelfth season riding here. I have a good start and I look forward to doing well,” he remarked after his first race Sunday.
But while Chin enjoyed his moments of success, Team Badda Badda was plagued with tire problems the entire race meet. Sporting severely shredded tires on both money bikes, Halquin “Pugu” Rodney and Randy Dyer had a rough day of racing. Although leading the MCA class, Halquin, appealed for help with tires.
“I’m just going out there to have fun and compete just the same, although I have no tires. Replacing them is very expensive so I would like some help with that but I’m just riding on what I have” said Rodney.
Dyer, second in the Motorcycle B points standing did not have an easy race day as he too struggled with worn tires. His crash on the first lap of the race left his bike further damaged.
“The race meet was not a good meet for Badda Badda …we went out there and did our best just the same,” Dyer told Auto.
