A combative fourth place finish was just reward for Darren Turner who made his debut at Barber Motorsports Park, during the GT World Challenge America Series’ visit to the picturesque Alabama venue, last weekend.
The works Aston Martin driver, who shares the Heart of Racing Vantage GT3 with Gray Newell, followed up his strong performance on Saturday with seventh place in the second race on Sunday to ensure the duo maintain their momentum into the series finale at Indianapolis in October.
Turner and Newell have claimed three Pro Am class podiums through the summer races, and high scores in Birmingham ensure they remain in the top five in the standings with double points available at Indy next month.
“First of all, I have to say what a venue,” said Turner, who was hugely impressed with the Barber facility. “I can’t remember visiting a circuit that was so hard to master in a long time. It has so many elevation changes and technical challenges, it’s just super-demanding and an interesting circuit. And with its beautiful backdrop it’s just a nice place to be.”
As for the racing, sometimes it’s the nature of the fight, rather than the result that rewards you as a driver. Darren along with his teammate Newell had to work hard to extract performance from their car through the weekend as they toiled to cajole the Pirelli tyres into a competitive window on the Vantage.
“We’d already lost a practice session to a technical issue,” explained Turner, “which not only made learning the circuit tricky, it meant Gray and I had limited time to find a way to make the tyres work, but we never really found the ultimate pace of the car. That said our race pace was much stronger than our one-lap potential and that helped us in the races.”
Having qualified 10th overall, Newell started the first race well, moving up to fifth in class as rivals spun, and held his own well until the pitstops.
“We tried something different with Gray’s strategy and ran him longer than usual to avoid the concertina effect that sometimes happens during the stop cycle,” explained Turner. “And this was a benefit.”
It meant Turner emerged from the pits chasing a podium position hard as the race settled into its second phase. But as he closed on the Regulator Racing Mercedes, he found himself being pursued hard by the GMG Racing Porsche.
“I knew I had to get past the Mercedes quickly, so I went for it into Turn 1, but it was a bit of lunge and while I’d made it clear I intended to come through I wasn’t quite alongside Jeff Burton who came down on the apex and clipped the front of my car,” admitted Turner.
The Aston half-spun, losing Turner time and any hope of third place in class, although he did catch and firmly pass the Mercedes for fourth as the race came to a close.
“Fourth was probably the best we were ever going to do anyway, but it was still frustrating to get the contact.”
In the second race, Turner’s fate was sealed on the opening lap when he was boxed in with a Hobson’s choice of competitive options.
“The first two or three corners were great and then the Corvette two cars in front of me had a big moment on the exit of Turn 3. This backed up the BMW and cost me momentum. So, when we reached Turn five, I found myself behind the BMW with a Mercedes challenging me to my left. Defending him meant the Ford was able to go round us both. Because we were all sort of tight on the left into the hairpin, I was in a losing position either way because I either had to defend the Mercedes or defend to the Ford, it was impossible to do both.
“Unfortunately, it meant I dropped behind the Ford and then I was stuck there until the pit stops.”
The team pitted Turner a lap early to see if an undercut might help Newell jump the slower cars in front of the Vantage, but an issue pulling away from the pits scuppered any hopes for that. “Grey did a great job after that and got his head down, put unfortunately he got punted at the end of the race which dropped him down to seventh,” said Turner.
“It wasn’t our best weekend this season, but if you can still take valuable points on weekends like this it means you’re making solid progress. Now it’s time to get our heads down and focus on delivering on our potential when we get to Indianapolis for the eight-hour finale!”
Before that comes one of Darren’s favourite weekends of the summer – the Goodwood Revival – next weekend where he will step into a Mini Cooper and a mighty Cobra... “I can’t wait for that!”