Local ace hits the world stage in style in Bavaria
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| Adam Stirling. | Stirling effort Adam |
MOIRA'S Adam Stirling has launched the provinces kart racing capability back onto the world stage when he took an amazing ninth place last weekend at Wackersdorf in Bavaria.
Not since Lurgan's Trevor Roberts won the World Championships in the 250cc Formula E class has there been such an opportunity for a driver from these shores and what makes this result so interesting is that Stirling did it in only his first season out of the British Junior classes.
Winning in motorsport runs in the family name as Adam's brother Carl won the 2008 British Junior championships and also the British Open championship before moving into racing cars.
Adam is only just out of the junior classes in the UK classifications and the meeting over the weekend saw him take on the first round of the new format CIK-FIA Under 18 World karting championships. At just 15 years old, Adam was one of the youngest drivers on the grid.
Racing an Intrepid machine under the Millenium Motorsport banner that helped Carl to 2008 victory, Adam was up against ninety others with only thirty six having the chance after timed qualifying to go through to the heats and finals. Under the watchful eye of Shane McFadden who has been the mechanic for the team for some time, Stirling immediately set about making rapid progress through the field that reads like a whos who of the next names in Formula One.
The meeting was not without setbacks though and in the early sessions an unavoidable collision with another driver resuiteed in a frantic rebuild for the four heats that followed. With two top tens and two mid teen results it was clear that Stirling had the top ten pace. The first final saw Stirling consolidate on his position as he moved up to sixteenth. However, when it came to the second final in what was turning out to be an extremely tough hot weather race Stirling surged further forward to finish with a terrific ninth place.
With more rounds to go later in the summer at Alcaniz in Spain and Val Ar enton in France the team will be well travelled by the end of the year and if young Stirling can stay inside the top ten then it will be an amazing run for the Stirling Brothers team. At European championship level, Charlie Eastwood from Carryduff just missed out on a top ten in his European championship opener at Genk in Belgium. Young Eastwood takes on the KF3 class and after cleaning up at his local Nutts Corner Circuit when the British championships visited the province in May hopes are also high of a big result for another family team.
The common denominator in all of this of course is Nutts Corner Circuit and drivers at local level will be back in action at the circuit on Sunday, August 8 for the next round of the Ulster Karting Club's Ulster Cup series.
Ulster Star
30/07/2010
