Tough night for BSL Racing at Barry Butterworth

Tough night for BSL Racing at Barry Butterworth

BSL Racing drivers Michael Pickens and Scott Buckley endured a tough night’s racing in the Barry Butterworth Classic, part of round 10 of the Springs Speedway season held on Saturday night.

With a slightly different format running that saw drivers selecting other drivers grid positions, both drivers only needed to qualify within the top 20 to make the feature race, without the added pressure of gaining a good grid position.

Heat two saw the #25 Iscar Esslinger powered Spike of Scott Buckley take to the track, starting out of fourth place and worked his way up to second place and in a battle for the lead when the flag fell. However the officials deemed Buckley jumped a re-start and he was relegated two places to fourth.

Heat three saw the first appearance of the #1NZ Auckland SsangYong Breka Esslinger of Michael Pickens. Starting from grid nine, Pickens made short work of the field as he moved up to third place by the end of the heat.

Both BSL Racing drivers competed head to head in heat five, with Pickens off grid four and Buckley starting from grid nine. Pickens took a comfortable victory, with Buckley taking fourth. The result put both drivers comfortably in the field for the 40-lap feature race.

The system to determine grids for the feature race saw the defending champion starting from the back of the 20 car field, with each driver choosing who would start in front of them. Pickens would start from grid 19, with Buckley starting from 14.

Both drivers made good progress early, although on lap five Pickens became caught up in an incident and although he was able to continue, had a flat front left tyre and would restart from position 18, while Buckley was in 13th place. The race continued and Buckley moved up to tenth place before the driveline failed on his car on lap 24. Pickens made good progress despite his problem, but at the end of the day was unable to get any further up the field than sixth place by the end of the race.

The BSL Racing team now gear up for next weekend’s meeting at Western Springs, which features the North Island Midget championship, the final Speedway New Zealand title for midgets this season.

Press Release by BB Media