Kiwi karter nudges world's best

Aucklander Daniel Bray (62) is a factory driver for Italian kart manufacturer GP. Photo / Todd McCall

Daniel Bray is carving out a career as a professional driver in often underrated motor sports category.

One of New Zealand's few full-time professional motor racers flies very much under the radar. It's not that Daniel Bray avoids the limelight, or the media, or is a recluse, it's more that his sport of karting is most of the time regarded as a stepping stone to bigger things.

The only bigger thing when changing categories to single seaters or saloon cars is the machinery itself. The competition is the same if not harder in karts and a fat chequebook won't actually buy that much more of an advantage. Sure, money helps but that's the same in any class of motorsport.

Aucklander Bray acknowledges karting is a great place to start developing a race career and a good area to learn race craft, but it is also an arena where you can forge a professional and international career.

"I probably am New Zealand's only full time professional karter," said Bray who had just arrived back from racing in Guadalajara, Mexico where he finished third.

"It's a bit of a shame that guys like me fly way under the radar, which I find very frustrating and it does tick me off a bit. I think because New Zealand is so far away from the rest of the world no one here really knows how big and popular karting is all around the world.

"A lot of people just look at it as a start to other motorsports. It's not. It's a proper motorsport in its own right and you can make a living from it professionally."

The 27-year-old is a factory driver for Italian kart manufacturer GP and travels the world plying his trade including world championships. The popularity of the sport overseas, and the level of competition is so fierce, that the annual Las Vegas Supernationals attracted 584 racers this year and the world championships in Europe is no different.

"To make a final is so difficult as there are so many heats and you have to get everything right at a 100 per cent all the time.

"We were really fast in Guadalajara and second fastest in first qualifying. I then got a flat tyre in the second qualifying race that put me right on the back foot.

"We had checked the tyre and bead screws three times but it was the wheel that had a crack in it and was leaking. Things like that could have caused me to qualify 45th, but lady luck was on our side and I managed to qualify 13th," said Bray.

The Kiwi did manage to get on the podium finishing behind some pretty useful talent in four-time former world champion Belgian Jonathan Thonon, and five-time former champ Italian Davide Fore.

Bray has been to a few world championships with a best finish of third and knows he can run with the best in the world. He's yet to get all his planets aligned on that one, very important weekend of the year and he's not giving up any time soon.

"It is actually quite funny you bring that up as we [Thonon and Fore] were talking about that on Sunday night after the race. I said to Jonathan I only had a third place finish to his four world titles and he told me I was fast enough to get a title one day. They don't need to see a championship on my list as they know who I am and respect me as a driver. It's still frustrating that I don't have one, but there are a lot of people out there who are fast enough to win a title, but who haven't," he said.

Bray knows that if lady luck looks kindly on him one of these years he'll get that elusive title, and in the meantime he'll keep fighting the good fight happy in the knowledge he's a factory driver and is actually very good at what he does.