D.J. Burnham Enjoying Open Wheel Competition After Making Transition From LTD. LM DivisionD.J. Burnham Enjoying Open Wheel Competition After Making Transition From LTD. LM Division
Stafford Springs, CT — After three seasons in Stafford Speedway’s Limited Late Model division, East Hartford native D.J. Burnham made the transition to the SK Light Modified division in the off-season. With no previous modified driving experience to speak of, Burnham has proven to be a quick study behind the wheel of his #54 Burnham Motorsports machine, recording three podium finishes and 4 top-10 finishes in his first 6 starts this season.
“I think this year has been a little surprising so far,” said Burnham. “I think I expected to be where we are now towards the end of the year. I think the driving style with an open wheel car suits me better than a full fendered car. With the full fendered car, you have to do a lot of bumping and roughing up to make passes and I never did much of that. With the open wheel car it’s more about finesse and momentum to make passes and I seem to be better at doing that than with the full fendered car. I tended to burn off my right front tire with the full fendered car trying to make passes.”
Being a complete rookie to driving an open wheel modified car, Burnham nearly won in only his second start, finishing second behind Glenn Griswold. Two weeks ago came Burnham’s second podium finish of the season and then last Friday night brought Burnham’s second second place finish as he finished behind Jeremy Sorel, another rookie driver.
“To look up at the board and see that we were running second, it was kind of like ‘wow, I can do this’,” said Burnham. “Then we went back to green and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I have a chance to win this race.’ But the car tightened up on me and we ended up finishing second. We struggled with the car in the beginning of the season, but lately we found some things that seem to work for me that I like in the car. My Dad and my brother bust their butts to give me a good car to drive every week. It’s not just me, it’s them and all the hard work they put in at the shop during the week.”
With three podium finishes in his first six races in the SK Light division, Burnham feels like a first win is right around the corner for him and the #54 team. If Burnham can get his first win this season, he would join Nick Salva, Dylan Menditto, and Sorel as first-time SK Light feature winners in 2014.
“I feel like we have a win coming, I really want to get my Dad and brother into victory lane this season,” said Burnham. “I think we have a good shot at doing that. We have a real fast car, the driver just needs to keep everything together. I feel more comfortable racing door to door with other cars and I’m still working on making passes, but I think we’ll get there. There’s some real good competition out there and there’s some real fast cars that we race with every Friday night. It would be an amazing feeling if we were able to win a race in the SK Light division. I’m going to try my hardest to join those three guys as first time winners this year. I’m out to win every time I go to the race track, it doesn’t matter if it’s my first race or my 100th race.”
While Burnham has enjoyed some great results this season in the SK Lights, he says it hasn’t all been easy and that the setup and adjustment choices he has with the SK Light car versus his Limited Late Model machine has been a tough nut to crack.
“I think the biggest challenge for us this year has been learning how adjustments affect the handling of the SK Light car,” said Burnham. “It’s totally different from what I was used to with the full fendered car. We didn’t have as many adjustments to make with the Limited Late Model but with the SK Light, there’s all sorts of things that you can change and it took us a little while to know what adjustments we needed to make to get the car faster in certain parts of the track. We’re still learning every time we go out on the track and sometimes we actually don’t make the right adjustments. Like last week we didn’t make the right adjustment for the feature. We still finished second, but we didn’t have the car adjusted enough. But knock on wood things have been going pretty well for us and we’re actually in the process of looking for a backup car. It would be awesome to get into an SK car one day, but I’m not sure we have the manpower or the bank roll behind us to do that. But I would have no problem down the road jumping into one of those cars, you always want to go faster. I really have to thank my Mom and Dad for giving me the opportunity to race the car, my brother for all his hard work, and my girlfriend for her support.”
The three first time winners in the SK Light division this season continues a trend from the 2013 season where there were also three first-time feature winners in the SK Light ranks. Should Burnham and his team continue their progress with their #54 car, they very well may make themselves the fourth different first time feature winner from the SK Light division this season.
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