Story By: BOBBY CHALMERS / PETER BRITTEN RACING – WEEDSPORT, NY – Confidence is key for any driver that straps into a racecar, and for Peter Britten, that couldn’t be any truer of a statement.
Britten, who just came off a seven-race in nine-day stint, knows that running well builds that confidence. During that stretch, Peter and his team reeled off four top five finishes and never finished worst than ninth. That would give any driver a big shot in the arm.
“I knew if we ran well during those races, especially early, we’d get into a groove and be all the better for it,” Britten said. “If you start off poorly, you’ll get in a hole real quick. Fortunately for us, we were consistently fast at every track we went to, including the Super DIRTcar Series races, and that allowed me to get in a good groove.”
While last Saturday at Lebanon Valley was washed out by rain, Britten pulled off his best finish of those races during in the last event he ran, the Don Horning Memorial at Albany-Saratoga. That night, Peter ran strong in his heat and started 13th in the main event. He was moving forward during the 35-lap affair but ran out of time to get by the top three runners.
“We started deep in the feature as usual because we’ve been running well there,” he said. “I felt like I was running a good pace…one that I needed if I wanted to win. Lap cars just held me up a bit when I could have made up some ground on the leaders. Time just ran out on me.”
Now, Britten heads into a regular weekend for himself and the Integra Shocks, Wilwood Brakes 21a team. He’ll run Friday at Albany-Saratoga and then Saturday at Lebanon Valley. The Australian is deep in the battle for the championship at both tracks. At Malta, he’s just 16 points behind fellow Troyer Race Cars competitor Marc Johnson, while he’s second in points at the Valley by just six markers to Kenny Tremont.
“I’m really excited to get back to both tracks this weekend,” he said. “I feel we’re on a roll right now. There’s some extra money up for grabs at the Valley Saturday night as well which is nice ($7,500-to-win). The points have been tight all season. However, the closer it gets to the end of the year, the more your focus will switches to that. The cliché’s ‘you run well and the points will take care of themselves.’ It’s just a great feeling to be in the hunt.”