Toktaş Makes Fast Start to Season

The opening round of the 2016 Turkish Hill Climb Championship, the İzmir Karşıyaka Hill Climb, was held on 26-27 March over three runs on the 6.50-kilometre course at the Karşıyaka Yamanlar Picnic Area.
Competing for Ülkü Motorsport with RMK Mekatronik sponsorship, Toktaş was hampered by a clutch problem that began on the practice run and persisted until the end of the event, keeping the performance short of what had been hoped for. Over the three runs of the event, including the practice runs, İsmet Toktaş took first place with times of 05:08.12, 05:01.22 and 05:00.01, a total of 15:09.35, to win Category 3.
After the event, Toktaş said: "Karşıyaka is a technical course that needs plenty of practice because of the different characters it contains. The corners are unforgiving in terms of braking points and racing line, and with the often broken surface you lose traction, especially in cars with stiff suspension. These handicaps cost me a lot of time in certain parts of the stage. Combined with the clutch problem, I had to lose two or three seconds per kilometre, but I was still able to finish the event in first place."
İsmet Toktaş will continue the championship fight at the second round of the season, to be organised in his home city of Bursa on 23-24 April.