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BEDFORD, MA (10 October 2007) If practice makes perfect, then Turner Motorsport teammates Adam Burrows and Trevor Hopwood had a leg up on the competition when they arrived at Virginia International Raceway for the Grand Am KONI Challenge Street Tuner class six-hour season finale. And when the checkered flag fell Saturday evening on their BMW 330i, Burrows and Hopwood had secured the championship with a season-record setting sixth podium finish.
Burrows credited the team's fast start during the race meet to time he and Hopwood had spent earlier in the week in iRacing.com's Driver Development Lab, practicing on a dead-accurate simulation of the 3.27-mile road circuit.
"Neither of us had raced at VIR for two years," Burrows said after the race. "And you never have as much track time in practice as you'd like. But when I pulled out of the pits for the first practice session, it felt like I'd been driving there the week before."
"Although they were series rookies, Adam and Trevor are talented, highly skilled racers, and obviously, many factors contributed to their success," said Scott McKee, vice president of marketing for iRacing.com. "But it's really gratifying to know that their time in the Driver Development Lab played a role. We didn't have time to model their BMW, but, as we've heard from other pro racers already, it's the accuracy of our sim that makes the difference; they can find a groove and lock it into muscle memory. Realism and repetition are a potent combination."
With a narrow, five-point lead going into the final race, Hopwood and Burrows knew they'd have to strike a fine balance between aggression and caution. Press too hard and they might break the car or crash; but too conservative a pace could see them come up short in the championship.
"The answer was to get a good rhythm going," Burrows said. "So we could go pretty fast and still not put the car at risk. I drove the shift from dusk into the darkness, when it's often hard to get into that rhythm. But not this time. And I think that's at least partly due to the time I spent in the Driver Development Lab."
The team had identified the car's brakes as the critical mechanical factor for this race. Wear them out and the time lost in the pits could never be made up. Late in the race, running in fourth place high enough in the race order to clinch the title Burrows was whistling through the darkness at the same pace as the leader. Team owner Will Turner came on the radio to tell Burrows to slow down.
"I told Will I was just driving easy, braking at the longest markers, and not leaning on the car at all," Burrows recalled. "I was just focusing on being as smooth as I could. The speed was coming from the rhythm."
Burrows continued to press the third-place car, until it ran out of fuel on the last lap, promoting the Turner Motorsport duo to its record-setting sixth podium finish. The ST title is the first professional championship for Hopwood and Burrows.
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