Luke Burley’s GT10 Success at Maritime
The second round of the inaugural BRCA F1 and GT10 Nationals took place at Maritime Raceway last weekend. Many of the UK’s drivers have attended race meetings at the permanent indoor track in Kent, attracting large entries throughout the year for 1:12, Mardave and touring car events. This year the venue will take a further step as they will open their purpose built indoor off-road track in the autumn.
In the GT10 class (closely based on the World GT formula pioneered in the US), Luke Burley took a dominant TQ driving a GM-powered Associated 10R5.1. Luke was the class of the field all day and has transferred his recently acquired skills racing 1:12 cars onto their bigger 1:10 counterparts with relative ease. Mark Burgess was second on the A final grid ahead of his friend and racing rival Jason Butterfield, both also driving Associateds.
In the A final, Luke cruised to a comfortable win and in doing so almost lapped the entire field! He was followed home by Jason whilst a close race ensued for third between front row starter Mark Burgess and Chris O’Donoghue who’d started fourth with Chris eventually coming out on top with his BMI car. It was interesting to see the closeness in performance of the two cars as Mark ran a 1S 10.5T set-up while Chris chose a 2S 17.5T arrangement in his car.
In the GP2 F1 class, drivers are required to run a control silver can motor. The result is very even performance levels and low running costs, which it is hoped will see the class grow and develop over time. In qualifying, Darren Newton was the class of the field and he took a comfortable pole ahead of series newcomer Dave Treacey with Rob Hall lining up third on the grid for the A final.
Darren converted his pole to a win in the final and won by just over six seconds from Rob Hall. Front row started Dave Treacey retired after three laps and this allowed Tom Hampson to move up from eighth on the grid and take the final podium place.
The Championship tables are now available here.
The third and final round of the series will take place in Teesside at the beginning of September.
