After securing his second successive Swift Rallycross Championship in 2015, Canterbury based driver Tristan Ovenden is relishing the move to compete in the Super 1600 class for 2016.
He plans to be contesting the full British championship driving the Peter Gwynne Motorsport prepared and run Suzuki Swift S1600.
Ovenden has raced in club motorcross from 1999 to 2003. The foot and mouth crisis pretty much ended motorcross for a year and then he moved on to supermoto for the next 5 years racing at club and national level.
His best was 3rd in the Southern Supermoto expert championship and won a national class meeting at Lydden Hill. He was also regularly competing in the British Championship.
Due to an injury he started to look for something else. Having watched rallycross at Lydden Hill, pretty much since he was born, the opportunity to enter rallycross presented itself through his association with Lydden Hill circuit as a local company.
He never thought it was a realistic option until the Swift series was available and he started to race in the series in 2010.
This season will see Ovenden competing locally and internationally with key dates already in the calendar.
Round 1 of the British championship gets underway on March 6th at Croft circuit in Yorkshire.
Round 2 – Lydden Hill 27-28 March
Round 3 – Pembrey 1 May
Round 4 – Pembrey 2 May
Round 5 – Maasmechelen, Belgium 16 – 17 July
Round 6 – Lydden Hill 29 August
Round 7 – Pembrey 25 September
Round 8 – Croft 22 October
The Goody Demolition and Promac Solutions backed driver also plans on entering the British round of the
World RX in May where the European Super 1600 championship is a support class.
Ovenden’s first taste of the world stage came last year behind the wheel of an RX Lite. It’s a challenge that he is very much looking forward to as the European Super 1600 has long been viewed as a stepping stone to WRX success producing drivers such as Timur Timerzyanov, Andreas Bakkerud and more recently Jānis Baumanis.
Ovenden said of the season ahead: “I’ve had great support in Swift Rallycross for many years I am pleased to continue my relationship with Peter Gwynne Motorsport going on to Super 1600, and having been given the opportunity to test the car at Lydden earlier this year, I think it has real potential and am looking forward to the new challenge.”
Pictures supplied by Matt Bristow.