Stockport’s Sami Bowler took third place and her first podium at her ‘home’ track when the Mini Challenge visited Oulton Park for round two of the 2019 championship.
Bowler, from Offerton, and in only her second season racing in the Mini Challenge, set the seventh fastest time in qualifying around Oulton Park’s International Circuit.
Racing her Mini Cooper, and backed by family business TW Bowler Haulage, Bowler got a great start in the first race leaving her fifth after lap one, moving up two more places to third by lap four when the race was stopped.
Regulations meant that the results from the previous lap left her in fourth position.
A ‘reversed grid’ for race two promoted Bowler to pole and she led from the front, hanging onto the lead until passed by Daniel Butcher-Lord and Rob Austin, dropping her to third.
Settling in, Bowler made third place her own, finishing a little over two seconds ahead of fourth-placed Keir McConomy.
Delighted with her first podium, Bowler said: “This is a moment I will never forget at my local track, with all my family watching me race for the first time. Hopefully this is the first of many podiums.”
Bowler is next in action at Brands Hatch in Kent over the weekend of July 20-21.
