Weekend of frustration for Lightfoot at Timaru

Weekend of frustration for Lightfoot at Timaru

The opening round of the 2015 UDC V8 Ute series was a frustrating one for Mike ‘Buzz’ Lightfoot, with plenty of speed and potential not reaping the deserved reward.

For the new season, Lightfoot entered a new engineering relationship with DCH Motorsport. Immediately, Lightfoot set a strong pace and although he only qualified seventh, it was a time within half a second of third place.

Race one saw Lightfoot making moves forward through the field, before contact with Australian driver Kirk Shier saw Lightfoot spin. He was forced to fight back through the field, bringing the Lightfoot Motorsport SEW Eurodrive Falcon Ute back to ninth place.

Starting off the front row for race two, Lightfoot got a great start and jumped straight into a commanding lead that he would hold over the first half of the race. Unfortunately a broken part in the gear shift system saw Lightfoot stuck originally in second and then fifth gear, seeing him drop to fourth place, although he was able to regain third place before the checkered flag flew.

Starting from seventh for the final race, Lightfoot was again turned around by Shier in the early stages of the race and forced to regain ground from last place, making his way back to ninth place.

“There are certainly plenty of positives to take away from the weekend but I guess there is a bit of unfulfilled potential in terms of putting results on the board from the weekend,” says Lightfoot. “DCH Motorsport did a great job of giving me a well set up Ute, so I’m confident we can have a better run at round two.

Lightfoot currently sits seventh in the points heading to round two at Ruapuna in Christchurch on March 21-22.

ENDS

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