Podium finish brings Newsham's emotional week to a close
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BATTLING through a family bereavement earned Dave Newsham and his team their first ever podium finish at Knockhill.
Newsham’s mother died early on Friday morning but the Inverness driver elected to go ahead and race at his home course — and finished second in the final race of the day.
It was the AmDTuning.com team’s first podium finish since entering the British Touring Car Championships in 2010 and occurred at the same track as one of Newsham’s two career race victories back in 2012.
The 47-year-old had driven down to Edinburgh on Thursday to take part in a special crossing of the Forth Road Bridge to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Scottish driver Jim Clark’s winning of the British Touring Car Championship.
But he returned to the Highlands to be with his mother through the night and into Friday morning, when she passed away. Newsham returned to Knockhill later that day to compete in the seventh weekend of the championship.
It proved a worthwhile journey as Newsham secured the team’s first podium finish.
"The last few days have been hugely difficult but taking part in the races has really helped me to deal with what has happened," he said.
"I’m sure that my mum will be looking down on me and will be proud of what we have achieved this weekend. Who knows, maybe she helped me a little bit along the way."
Newsham qualified 16th on the grid at the wheel of his Ford Focus for the first race, with the possibility that he could have been higher had it not been for the fact that he just missed out starting his final flying lap in the session as the chequered flag flew.
A strong drive in race one saw Newsham move through the pack to ninth place and, despite an issue with the tyre pressures on his car, went one place better in race two to secure eighth.
That put him third on the grid for race three when the reverse grid draw took place and, although he slipped back a place when the lights went out, a fine move at the hairpin on the third lap saw him move back into a podium position ahead of former champion Fabrizio Giovanardi.
Fighting his way ahead of the BMW of Nick Foster into second place, the AmDTuning.com driver then came under increasing pressure from championship leader Colin Turkington before bringing his car to the finish for a first podium finish of the year.
Newsham could not hide his delight with the performance and believes it had been coming.
"We’ve shown we have the pace on more than one occasion this season but for various reasons, we’ve never been in a position to really make it pay," he said.
"Here, we did that in the first two races and then in race three, I was able to make two strong passes to get into second place and then just had to hold on.
"Getting ahead of Fabrizio early on was key and then when I got through past Nick, I knew I had to push as hard as I could. Colin put me under huge pressure towards the end and I knew he was coming, but there was no way he was going to get through."
The Knockhill performance followed a difficult weekend at Snetterton, where Newsham managed just a single points finish.
Rob Collard, an eBay Motors driver, pipped Newsham to the win on the final race.
AmD’s team manager Shaun Hollamby sang the praises of his lead driver, who is now in 18th place in the driver’s standings.
"His drive in race three was faultless. He was aggressive when he needed to be and then drove with his head," he said. "It’s been a difficult spell for Dave but this weekend he has been the ultimate professional and has delivered the goods on the track."
