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Maiden pole just the start for Cody Burcher
Impressive rookie Cody Burcher capped off his maiden Turtle Wax Trans Am Series campaign with his maiden pole position at the historic Sandown event and he is targeting more of the same in 2023.
Although he didn’t start from pole position in the race due to Melbourne’s infamous four season in one day type weather resulting in a drying track and leading to Burcher among many other leaders to pit for wets.
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Burcher finished fifth and eighth at Sandown to secure a top 10 position in the overall standings.
Not only does Burcher get on the tools himself, but after recently completing his accounting studies is also responsible for the budgetary facets of the small team. As a qualified motor mechanic, his father and a close family friend, who was a former apprentice since returned to the Burcher’s business form part of a very close knit team.
It’s this structure aided by a technical alliance with Garry Rogers Motorsport, which has enabled Burcher to punch above his weight this season.
“Personally, we always knew the pace was there to an extent and I had confidence in that, it was just piecing it altogether,” Burcher explained
“This year was a really big step up from what we were doing previously in Formula Ford. We got the car from down in Melbourne a week before it needed to be on the boat to go to Tasmania, so we fitted in a test day and got it back to the workshop to do the things we needed to do before we sent it to Symmons Plains. My grandfather in fact got the car down to Melbourne and onto the boat for us.
“All year that’s the only test day we’ve had.”
Although there was trackside assistance from GRM, all the preparations, set-up and transportation is completed by Burcher’s team in its local town, with the young gun holding much pride in what was achieved last season.
“I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved in our maiden year, to have a podium and a pole in my first season considering not only the circumstances, but what we had thrown at us, I’m beyond delighted with how it has gone,” said Burcher.
“Finishing 10th in the series I don’t think tells the whole story of the year we really had. The thing that let us down was having a clutch fail at Bathurst in Race 1 and this hurt the rest of the weekend, while we also had a difficult round at Queensland Raceway. These inconsistencies, constant learning, plus things out of our control hurt the end result, but nonetheless the speed was always there.
“Having done that coming out of a Formula Ford and having one test day all year, it has been a really good season.
“Driving a Trans Am needs a completely different philosophy and to do all the exploration I did during the race weekends, it was a big learning curve and if you put the right procedures in place, you will get the desired result.”
Next, Burcher is aiming for redemption at the Mountain confirming his aim to contest the Trans Am 100 at the inaugural Supercheap Auto Bathurst International on November 11-13.