Padmore has success at home – and abroad
Busy period for Horsham driver
Horsham racing driver Nick PadmorewasatEstorilinPortugal for the final rounds of the Peter Auto Run Championships for this season.
Over the season he has raced fortheTFTRacingTeam,sharing the drives in two cars with their owner Jean-Lou Rihon. The pair have contested the Endurance Legends races in a Porsche 996 GT3-RSR and the Heritage Touring Car Cup in a BMW 635CSi.
Sadly,atEstorilthesuspension brokeonthePorschewhileRihon was driving in qualifying and renderedthecaranon-starterfor the races for the weekend.
The pair recovered from that disappointment to qualify the BMW in 18th overall in the 31 car field and on pole position for the Group A class in which they compete. Rihon started the one hour race and initially ran in 20th before rising to 16th by the 34-minutes-to-go mark, which improvedto14thwhenheheaded for the pits for their mandatory pit stop and driver change with 31 minutes to go.
Padmore took over driving duties and rejoined in 16th after their stop and two places behind the class leader. With 18 minutes left,hewasupto14thandgaining ontheclassleaderwhenthesafety car was called onto track for an incident.
Thesafetycarleadingthefield around means the competitors closeup,sowhenracingresumed after the safety car period he was 13th and just 2.5 seconds behind that class leader though with a couple of backmarkers between them.Astheyracedintothelast10 minutes, Padmore was catching the class leader quite quickly and with seven minutes to go he passed his rival to take the class lead and moved into the top 10 overall.
At the chequered flag he was up to an excellent eighth overall, claiming fastest lap in his class and securing the first victory for thepairpullingoutaclasswinning margin of almost 10 seconds in those last seven minutes.
Padmore was later at Goodwoodforthe78thMembers’ MeetingdrivingaBMW530iinthe
GerryMarshallTrophyracesand a Ford Mustang in the Pierpoint Trophy. The invite to race the Mustang was a late arrangement foracarhehadn’tpreviouslyeven sat in. He was sharing driving duties with its owner and, after qualifying 25th following a technical problem, they climbed to 15th.
Meanwhile, he qualified the BMW in a fine second place for the 20 minute race that would be heat two for the Gerry Marshall Trophy as he enjoyed drifting the car around in wet conditions.
The track was drier by the time the heat took place later and he eventually took the flag in fifth after enjoying an exciting dicewithformerBTCCstarSteve Soper in a Ford Capri.
Sunday was fine and sunny, though the sun was setting as the cars took to the grid for the 20 minute final to round out the weekends’ racing. He took the flag in eighth, having thoroughly enjoyed the race, and was very grateful to the Sadler family that own the car for allowing him to drive it.