An update from Rick Parfitt Junior, Daytona’s pet racing driver and rock-and-roll fellow: Round 1 GT5 championship Oulton Park.
35 GT5 Ginetta’s turned out for the first round, and with many of the fast drivers returning to the series coupled with the current Ginetta Junior Champion, and G20 Champion and vice champion, the wealth of talent at the sharp end merely strengthened the image that GT5 is proving to be the most competitive one make series in the UK. Rick in only his 8th ever car meeting was showing impressive pace in testing and translated that into a very credible 6th and 7th place in qualifying. “The target was top ten, so to be in 6th and 7th is absolutely fantastic given that everyone in the field has been racing many more years than me, and I know there is more to come from both the car and myself” Rick Commented.
Race one saw Rick get up to 4th by turn one only to be pushed wide at ‘old hall’ there was a very clear break away pack which Rick was part of, ” the car was very tail end happy, so i knew that going on the offensive was probably not an option so I was happy to sit in 6th” however the rear end of the car was becoming more and more difficult to control and caused Rick to spin, he rejoined the circuit in 14th, and then preceded to battle his way up to 11th.
Race two saw Rick have a fantastic start up into 4th position, however with the set up changes the car was no suffering massive understeer, the complete opposite to the first race!…rick struggled to get the car to turn in however managed to keep up enough pace to finish 8th.
Race 3 was decided on race 2’s finishing spot, and for the first time Rick had a bad start “to be honest the boards they were showing slightly confused me!,…so I was still in Neutral when the lights came on!”, this led to rick being swamped by cars at the start,…he fell back to 16th and then knew that he had to battle hard to get a decent position, the race was very physical and Rick’s bonnet definitely took a battering however with some very ‘positive’ moves (as he put it) he came home inside the top ten in 9th.
“It was a great weekend in all, I finished all three races and barring the spin in race one I would have finished in 5th, so to be 8th in the championship and only 3 points off 5th is fantastic, we have a lot of set up work to do before Rockingham, but it’s really encouraging to be showing such good pace early on in the championship, and this is only my 8th ever car meeting! Thanks have to go to my sponsors, Westward, Penine Foods, Moody’s Worldwide, Daytona Motorsport, Dewalt and Exitex for helping me be here and Piranha Motorsport for preparing a great race car”
Keep up the good work, Rick!