Earl
Bamber has this uncanny luck of being in the right place at the right
time. More often than not he has his racing gear with him and has
stepped in to many different classes of motorsport and let his talent do
the talking.
So it happened recently in Mongolia
for the third to last round of the Superleague Formula (SF), but this
time he didn’t have his gear with him.
Superleague is described as the
fusion between two of the world’s most popular sports – football and
motor racing. The concept kicked off in August 2008 with a field of
V12-powered 750 horsepower single seater race cars bearing the colours
of the world’s leading football teams.
Bamber describes what happens:
“I turned up on the Friday at 12:30 in Mongolia (Ordos International Circuit, China) for commentating, - I know Jonathon Green (commentates for Superbikes) very well and a year previously he gave me a contact for commentating back in 2008/9 at Donnington. They liked what I did and gave me a contract for two rounds and extended it to three, then five to six rounds.”
“I was in China and then all of a sudden they said to me, you’re not working this weekend you’re racing instead. “
“There had been a common joke throughout the season that I would eventually race in the series.”
“I thought they were having a joke so went upstairs and carried on with
what I was doing then someone from Superleague tapped me on the shoulder
and said you’re actually driving so you’d better come with me. “
Which bears the question was it by accident or design that this occurred?
“By shear pure luck actually,” is Bamber’s reply.
So why didn’t he have his gear with him?
” When you’ve been to five or six rounds and there are no other support categories and you’re flying to outer Mongolia then you don’t think that it will be required.”
“I had to beg steal or borrow gear from drivers and eventually got onto the grid and qualified eighth, raced to third in the first race; the second race was a reverse grid and ended up twelfth from twentieth and then in the Superfinal we ended up winning.”
“From that they decided to get
me to drive in the next round at China, (Beijing). Had another chance
but in qualifying we didn’t go so well being caught by a red (flag) and
started last (20th) ending up sixth, starting ninth in the second race,
finished second.”
“I was a
bit gutted with that as it should have been a win but there were some
red flags. They cancelled the Superfinal but we won that because we
were on pole position and had most points for the weekend, so were
declared the winner!”
Bamber is now back in New Zealand driving in the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge fro Triple X Motorsport. “Currently my goal is to race Porsche GT3 here in NZ and then race V8 Supercars in Australia, but if that is not an option then it (Superleague) could be used as a filler. I am a racing car driver so I drive anything that I can and where ever I get the opportunity.”
