Burdon uncontested in maiden Racecar NASCAR Touring Series race win

Tasmanias Josh Burdon has opened his 2013 European Racecar NASCAR Touring Series campaign in true style, scoring maximum points for the Open Division in Nogaro FRANCE, 31st March 2013.

Starting from Pole Position, the 20-year-old from Hobart took the early lead on a drying track in his Forza Motorsport Chevrolet SS, and continued to increase his lead throughout the whole race, finishing with a 6.4 second gap to Frenchman, Anthony Gandon.

"It was a good day for me, and I am excited to get a win overseas, said Burdon, there is something special about hearing your national anthem being played in a foreign country while you stand on the top step of a podium...I like it a lot and I am very hungry for more".

"The race today was actually a little difficult, said Burdon, despite qualifying on pole I still wasn't convinced with the set up we had dialled in, so I made a decision with my engineers overnight to take a big risk and change the car, which in the end payed off.

During the Saturday afternoons qualifying session, Burdon was able to overcome some initial concerns from practice and recorded an impressive qualifying time of 1:35.458 on lap 3, 0.390s clear of second placed TFT Leclerc driver Anthony Gandon (France).

After a few teething problems in free practice with the car and set up issues, I was pretty nervous heading into qualifying, said Burdon, I knew I had a job to do and had a plan about how I was going to go about it and it came together.

I did 3 flying laps and all 3 would have put me on the pole before I stopped the session to save tyres, so it was a nice run.

With race one starting at 9:30am, the track was not ideal due to an overnight downpour, however, Burdon made his break right from the start and concentrated on getting his lines right to continually better his times throughout the race to take his first international race win.

It was early in the morning and there was lots of heavy rain overnight so the track was still a little bit wet in places, said Burdon, I knew that the TFT opposition cars are fast over a race distance [30mins] so I had a plan to maximum attack right from turn 1 and take calculated risks to try and gain a comfortable buffer.

The race pretty much went to plan and I opened up a nice gap and was able to cruise home in the end.Burdons gap extended as far as nine seconds throughout the race, and the Scorpus Racing driver was fortunate to avoid a significant collision as he caught up to the back of the field.

I had a few problems with lap traffic on the way, said Burdon, at turn one, two cars made contact as I was coming up on the back of them, they both spun and were still rolling in the middle of the track...a real heart in the mouth situation for me and Im glad I got through."

Grid positions for the second and final race of the opening round are determined by fastest lap times, which will see Burdon on pole position for a second time with his time of 1:35.928 over three-tenths quicker than the next competitor.


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