Sam Burman, a diary of a racer - Bank Holiday action

Friday, 03 June 2011 14:00

Over the bank holiday weekend we travelled down to Hampshire for the latest round of the BSB Championship at the fast and flowing Thruxton circuit.

Although Thruxton is a circuit I haven’t been to very often its one I do enjoy, and had high hopes for a successful weekend. Unfortunately we didn’t have the best of starts suffering an engine seizure within the first lap of free practice one, limiting our first day track time and putting us on the back foot in such a competitive field.

Free Practice two and qualifying one both went smoothly, feeling we were making good progress seeing us in the top 20. In qualifying two a slight misjudgement at the end of the session resulted in us achieve 22nd position on the grid, although we did improve it wasn’t enough and discovered that on a fast circuit such as this slipstreaming makes a big difference but getting that all important tow is very difficult. I really do feel that qualifying is the area in which we need to work on the most.
Once again come race day I had a good start and an awesome first lap that saw me just tagging on to the leading group, the leader went down splitting the field . As the race went on in the continuing wet conditions. I ended up lapping on my own in 12th position which is hard in the wet with nothing to judge your pace off. Then in the closing stages a group from behind caught me, I managed to drop my times and go with them but didn’t have time to fight back. I was gutted they got me but 14th is still our best result so far showing that we are progressing.

Next we’ll be travelling to Scotland for the new challenge of Knockhill that’s on the 17th – 19th of June. Sam