Former rivals and Radical Champions Steve Burgess and Ben Dimmack have teamed up this season to share a RAW Motorsports run Ginetta G55 in the Britcar Dunlop Endurance Championship.Being classified in Class 2 was always going to be a tall order, competing against Ferrari 488’s which on paper should have been significantly faster. The duo made their debut in last weekends double header at Silverstone and celebrated with a strong sixth place finish in race two.Qualifying had gone well and for the first race of the weekend they lined up 10th overall and sixth in class. “I went out first on wets but only changed to slicks near the end, so just warmed them up for steve really,” said Dimmack.“Yes he was my tyre fettler and the late change to slicks kept them in good order to start the race,” said Burgess. Race 1: Burgess took the wheel for the opening stint in race one and settled into a top 10 race position. Apart from losing out to the overall winning Praga on lap five and Sam Neary’s BMW M3 a lap later, Burgess held station for the majority of his stint, in ninth.
As his rivals began to make their stops for the driver changes, Burgess started to climb the leaderboard and was up to sixth when he came in to hand over to Dimmack on lap 13, which made them second in class behind David Brise/Alan Purbrick’s Saker. “I think I was a bit too aggressive with the tyres, so they weren’t good when I handed to Ben,” Burgess explained. Once the stops had been completed Dimmack found himself in ninth again, before losing out to Steve Harris’ Saker in the closing laps and finally settling in 11th place, fifth in class. “The tyres had gone when I took over, so just did the best I could, but wasn’t happy with the pace,” said Dimmack. Race 2: Dimmack started in the second race and was soon settled in ninth place once more until the pitstops begun.
He had climbed to sixth again by lap 13 when he handed to Burgess, having almost mirrored the same outcome as in the first half of race one. “I was having a great duel with one of the Porsche’s. I would pass then he would just drive passed me again on the straights, but I was much happier with how it all felt,” he explained.After the stops they were back to 10th but soon on the move again into seventh by the end of lap 21. Fourth in class. But Burgess’s efforts heeded him a warning for exploring track limits, which was then followed by a five seconds penalty. “I didn’t see the warning flag so thought I had got away with it,” he admitted.But in the mean time he had got passed the Cunningham family Porsche with a lap to go, which sealed sixth overall and fourth in class, to end a promising debut.“We had a better set up and the tyres were good, so it made it an enjoyable end to our day,” Burgess concluded.