Burntwood racing driver James Tucker has been finding his feet in the sport of stock car racing since switching from the circuits.
The 21-year old has now contested several meetings with the Rebels Racing formula, swapping the Formula Ford single seater he competed in last year for an 850cc Reliant-powered stock car.
After taking a best result of 15th on his debut meeting at Northampton International Raceway in April, James raced a hired Rebel again at the venue on Easter Monday and scored his first top ten finish in the Allcomers race at the end of the programme.
A week later he and his team moved on to Skegness for a two-day meeting, the first day seeing him battle to a fine sixth place in the Final to finish the meeting with 40 points, but the second day was tougher among a large grid of cars and yielded only a best of 18th.
Undaunted, James decided to purchase his very own Rebel from fellow racer Andy Beverton, and he lined up at the wheel for his first meeting in the new machine at Birmingham Wheels Raceway on May 28 alongside a huge grid of 35 cars all packed onto the tight quarter mile. The first heat saw him take 12th place, while heat two saw him take his best finish so far in fifth as the bigger names seemed content to scrap among themselves further down the field.
The consistent results meant he started fourth on the grid for the Feature race, but a chaotic start dropped him back and he finished 12th again.
James’ race of the night was the Allcomers Grand National at the end of the programme, competing for qualifying points for the National Championship at the end of the year. After a good start he dived inside Steve Pimbley to take up the lead and held on in front for several laps, only to get out of shape exiting turn two handing Paul Jones the lead. James then fell back a couple more spots and a tap from World Champion Steve Shaw sent him spinning, Jones hitting him head-on to finish both their races early.
Despite the setback James was very upbeat after the debut of his new car. He said:
“All in all it was a good day’s racing, and my father Paul and I are slowly homing in on the car set-up with the limited practice time we have available to us.”
The next meeting for the hugely popular Rebels takes place on June 12 at Buxton Raceway when the Peak District venue stages the Johnny Goodhall Memorial meeting.
Visit www.JamesJTucker.co.uk and www.rebelsracing.com for more information.
