MOTOR SPORT Dempsey back on top of the Star Mazda Championship

Ireland's Dunlop Motorsport Ireland Young Racing Driver for 2009, Peter Dempsey moved back to the top of the Star Mazda Championship after a tough weekend at New Jersey Motorsport Park on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th June, where he finished 6th on Saturday and 7th on Sunday.

With backing from the Irish Sports Council the Ashbourne driver struggled in qualifying for the first race and found himself down in 15th place, his worst qualifying since he joined the Star Mazda Championship in 2008. But the Quayside.ie driver drove a fantastic race to finish 6th passing 9 cars, the most by any driver over the weekend.

The team made major changes to the car for second qualifying but with his bad qualifying for the first race Peter found himself in the slow group who go out for the first 20 minutes of the 40 minute qualifying session. Dempsey put in a great set of times and topped the group by over a second and was a second quicker than the pole time for the first race.
Peter now had to sit and watch his main competitors qualify and hope his time was good enough, as the session went on he sat on the top of the times but with 5 minutes to go he was pushed down to 6th place only .2 off the quickest time.

"It was really hard watching the fast group qualify as I had no chance to react and all I could do was sit and wait. The car was really good today and I think if I was in the fast group I could have got the pole but to be honest my 6th place feels like pole because we struggled so much in qualifying for the first race. It has been really difficult this season as finding the funding to do the race weekends has been a real struggle. Not only have I missed the test days prior to the race weekends but I had to sit out the Thursday test before this race weekend which really did hurt me as of the two test sessions one of them was wet. I am really happy to come out of this weekend leading the Championship it has been a bad weekend but I had a bit of luck when my main competitors hit some bad luck too."

Peter hopes to make it to Milwaukee for his first oval race this weekend but as normal he does not have the money in place, neither has he done the testing, so it is a big ask to expect any good results this weekend.