D.J. Burnham Making Move from Full Fenders to Open Wheels in 2014 at Stafford Speedway
Stafford Springs, CT — After three successful seasons in Stafford’s Limited Late Model division, East Hartford native D.J. Burnham will trade full fenders for open wheel modifieds as he is set to join the SK Light division in 2014. Burnham came to Stafford’s Limited Late Model division in 2011 and in three seasons he has posted 6 career wins and he has finished in the top-5 of the points standings in each of his three seasons. Burnham is hopeful that he can continue his front running ways as he makes the switch.
“I hope to run towards the front of the pack, said Burnham. “I know at the start of the season we’re not going to set the world on fire, but I’m expecting to be competitive by the middle to end of the year. We’d like to win a race too, that would be nice for us. We’re planning on running the full year. I really have to thank my Mom and Dad for putting this together for me. I always thought we were going to move up to Late Model and it was about halfway through the season we started talking about a modified and next thing you know, there was a modified in the garage. It doesn’t really matter to me, as long as I’m on the track it’s fine with me. Anything that my dad and brother want to put together for me, I’ll drive it. I’m a little nervous but I’m more excited than anything. We like building cars during the winter, that’s what we have fun doing.”
While Burnham has enjoyed the taste of victory lane during his three seasons of Ltd. Late Model competition at Stafford, he enters the 2014 season with next to zero experience behind the wheel of a modified. But his very limited experience did at least offer him a first impression of what life behind the wheel of a modified will be like.
“This will be my first time driving a modified,” said Burnham. “I drove Joey [Ferrigno’s] car from the tech area back to his trailer once last year and that was the only experience I have driving a modified so far. It felt like it was a lot wider car than the Limited Late Model and it was definitely different being able to see the tires.”
With no modified racing experience to speak of, the first few practice sessions of the new season willl be of ultra importance as Burnham and his brother Brian will be searching for a setup that will allow them to be contenders for race wins during the 2014 season. While they will be starting fresh from zero, Burnham is looking forward to the challenge of adapting to a new style of car and racing than what he has become accustomed to.
“It’s going to be totally different for us setting the car up,” said Burnahm. “We have no experience at all working on these cars and driving is going to be totally different but I’m looking forward to the challenge. They have really good competition in the SK Lights and there’s a couple more cars on track than I’m used to racing against so I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re going into the season with nothing but I still expect to be competitive and run up front every week. I’m still going to be holding myself to the standard of being competitive week in and week out. We bought Kyle Spencer’s old modified and we’ve taken the car all apart and brought it down to CD and now it’s out getting a new body and tin put on it.”
Although Burnham will be building a notebook from scratch this season, he needs to look no further than the 2013 SK Light rookie class to see that success can be found by rookie drivers. Chase Dowling and Troy Talman both came to Stafford with little or no modified racing experience and Dowling ended up leading the division with 7 wins this past season while Talman was able to win a race in only his second start at Stafford.
“There were some young kids that had never driven modifieds before that did really well this year and I’m hoping that my Ltd. Late Model experience will give me a little bit of something to work with in the SK Lights,” said Burnham. “I do know that you’re not supposed to drive the SK Lights sideways like the Limited cars. At least I’ve been around the track a little bit so it should be better than my first season in the Limited car when I had no experience going around Stafford at all.”
While Burnham and his brother will be busy searching for a good setup, they are also in the search of sponsorship for their SK Light effort.
“We don’t have any sponsorship at all so we’re searching for some potential sponsors,” said Burnham. “Sponsorship was one of the main reasons why we didn’t move up to the Late Model division this year. One reason was we didn’t have enough crew members for infield pitting and the second reason was we couldn’t afford a new motor for the Late Model. We’re going to take our Limited motor and go racing with that, the only differences are the oil pan, intake, and carburetor. We’re still holding on to our Limited car to see how things pan out with the SK Light. If things are going well and we like the car we might end up selling the Limited car but we’re going to hold on to it for now.”
Burnham will have his first taste of open wheel racing when the green flag drops on the 43rd Annual Spring Sizzler, which is scheduled for April 25-27, 2014. For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Sources: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR