The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
The Wyberton-based G&S Racing Kawasaki team were celebrating when Asher Durham rode to his first victory in the 2023 Pirelli National Junior Superstock championship at Snetterton on Sunday.
After missing the first race of the 2023 series, Durham has been a revelation, recording two seconds and a third place in his last three races for the team.
He overcame problems with the bike during qualifying to snatch his first Junior Superstock win, consolidating his second place in the rider standings reducing the gap to Aaron Silvester to 25 points.
Technical problems during qualifying left him down in 10th place for a fourth row start but when the lights went out at the start of the race, Durham shot away to a cracking start, slotting into fourth place on the first lap.
On lap three he inherited third place when Sam Laffins crashed ahead of him and on lap six he was up into second position. But he was determined to get ahead of championship leader Silvester and snatched the lead at turn one on lap eight.
Despite his best efforts Silvester was unable to retake his position and the pair pulled away from the field with Silvester hanging onto Durham’s back wheel.
The race came to an abrupt end on lap nine when the red flag came out for a crash and a result called with Durham declared the winner. He also recorded the fastest lap of the race with a 1m 54.202s – 93.58mph.
Meanwhile in the senior class Jorel Boerboom, now fully recovered from his crash at Knockhill, is consistently moving forward.
He completed qualifying at Snetterton in his best ever position of 21st, and began the 12-lap race from the seventh row.
He got away well at the start but three riders crashed at Agostini and in avoiding the incident he lost ground to 26th position.
The safety car was deployed for a couple of laps to clear the crash and when it left the track Boerboom set about regaining the ground he had lost.
He made it back up to 20th place on the penultimate lap but was caught on the run to the flag and finished in 21st place.
Team manager Tom Fisher said: “What a weekend we have had at Snetterton.
“Asher had struggled through qualifying with a technical problem which affected his starting position. We found the problem overnight and tested in morning warm up. Asher did so well to come from 10th on the grid to take the win and we are all so pleased for him.
“Jorel has made some big steps forward over the past few weeks and found an extra couple of seconds on his personal best times here. He was just outside the top 20 this week and is growing in confidence with every race.
“We have to thank our loyal sponsors and supporters and so pleased we were able to give them a win today.”
The next round is at Brands Hatch over the weekend of July 21/23.
