An Interview with 2015 Bangerstox Suffolk Champion 44 Jordan Godfrey
(interview published June 17 2015 in the lead up to the penultimate Masters qualifier at Dover on July 12)

Age: 16
Home Town: Canterbury
Occupation: Taking GCSE exams and about to start at college studying mechanics
Family: Girlfriend Emily
Started racing: In early 2014 in Junior Bangers at Arena Essex

Congratulations on winning the Bangerstox Suffolk Championship at Mildenhall on May 31, how special was that race and the entire weekend for you?
It was a brilliant weekend and it’s a massive deal for me to win that championship. I never dreamed I would win it, even when I started the race on pole position it still didn’t really enter my head that I had much of a chance, I figured I’d had all my good luck and results in the heat races and that was it really so to go out and win the race from the front was just brilliant and more than I could have ever wished for really. It was a special weekend all the way through though because the first race which I won was actually my first ever race win. In my time of doing Junior Bangers I won one trophy and that was a third in a final so I’d never won a race before and to win my first race at Mildenhall was amazing, I would have been more than happy if that had been the whole weekend there and then for me but to go on and win another heat and then win the championship was just incredible.

At what point in the championship did you start to think you could win?
I don’t think it was until quite a way into the race to be honest. I was really chuffed to qualify on pole position, just being the top points scorer from all the heats was enough of an achievement and I never started the race thinking I had the best of chances which I suppose might have helped me a little because I was actually quite relaxed for the championship. This is my first season in the Bangerstox and I haven’t been racing for very long at all and there are so many more experienced drivers in the formula and there was a lot of them in that race. When the grid was set I could see Andy Burbridge right behind me and I consider him to be a very good driver with lots more experience than myself so I honestly expected to see him and quite a few others pass me when the race got underway but instead I was able to stay in front which was a cool thing. As the race was going on I started to see (47 Levi Parish) starting to catch me and again I figured he would eventually get to me but then I saw him hit the fence in my mirror and all of a sudden I pulled away again and that was probably when I started to think it could happen and I might be able to win.

How hard is it to lead a race like that flag to flag?
It’s pretty tough really. I find it is much easier to be behind in a race and have a leader you can chase. When you aren’t winning you have a target and you keep trying to go faster than the car in front and try to get in front of it but when you are leading it’s different because it’s hard to know how much to push without going too far and I think it’s actually quite easy to go slower when you are leading a race. I tried to not think of it like that and just go as hard as I could in all the races I was leading, I think I was quite lucky in that there were back markers in a lot of the races so you could use them as targets and try and keep passing cars and pushing forward.

As you mentioned, the Suffolk Championship was your first visit to Mildenhall as a racer, how did you find the track?
I really liked it, it’s so completely different to Dover that you really cannot compare the two but I think Mildenhall is a little easier to race on myself. Obviously it is a lot smoother than Dover and it’s also a lot wider, I think compared to Mildenhall, Dover is a much harder track to get round and definitely a harder track to master. That probably shows with me a bit because I’m still struggling to find my way at Dover whereas I was able to win my first race at Mildenhall.

You describe struggling at Dover and this is certainly the case as the points you scored at the Mildenhall weekend have more than eclipsed the points you scored at the first four meetings of the season at Dover, what has been the issues at Dover and do you think your success at Mildenhall will help in the future?
I think doing so well at Mildenhall will definitely help because it’s already given me a massive confidence boost and I think that makes a huge difference. Towards the end of my time racing Junior Bangers I was starting to gain a lot of confidence and it made a big difference to my racing and then I switched to the Bangerstox and I had a really bad first meeting in the formula and it kind of knocked me back to square one I suppose and I’ve been gradually building myself back up from that. To have such a good weekend at Mildenhall I think will make a massive difference when I go back to racing at Dover. I’m already really looking forward to the next meeting, much more than any other meetings and that is a big difference straight away. I think in the few meetings I’ve had at Dover so far I’m already getting a lot better. Like I said I think it’s a very tricky and challenging track and I don’t think I completely appreciated how hard of a challenge it would be when I raced there for the first time. Now I’m starting to feel a bit better and getting the hang of the track and the results are starting to get better, I hope now that with the results from Mildenhall it will give me a bit of a boost at Dover as well, I’d love to get a win there as well that would mean a lot to me.

The points you scored at Mildenhall have moved you right up the points chart, is finishing in the top 10 a target for the season now?
Yes it really is, in fact my hope is to keep moving forward with every meeting now and I’m challenging myself to try and finish in the top three. I know it’s a big ask, especially in my first season but you always have to try and push yourself as hard as you can and try and do your best, hopefully if I can keep up this run of results I’ll keep improving my position as the season goes on.

The next two meetings at Dover (June 21 and July 12) are Masters Championship qualifiers, as you mentioned you had a bad start to the season which was the first qualifying round, how important is qualifying for the Masters final for you?
Yeah, it’s definitely something I really want to do and I’d be really disappointed if I didn’t managed to qualify so I’ll definitely be giving it everything to try and get some good points at the next rounds and get onto the grid. Hopefully everything is starting to come together nicely now for me and I’ll start getting some better results at Dover and hopefully they will come at these qualifying rounds. I’m also aiming to qualify for the Kent Championship in August. I didn’t qualify for the Southern Championship which was a shame so I don’t want that to happen again for the Kent and the Masters, at least the points I scored at Mildenhall will help me qualify for the Kent Championship so fingers crossed I make it into that one at least.

We’ve also seen you in National Bangers this year, racing at the van meeting at Dover, is this something we might see more of in the future?
I hope so. I want to eventually race bangers full time, that’s my target but at the moment we didn’t feel it was the best thing, having just come out of Junior Bangers I thought maybe going straight into National Bangers might have been a bit of a big jump and also I’m just finishing my GCSE exams and start college in September. The Bangerstox has been a pretty distraction from my school work because I want to work on the car more than getting ready for my exam (laughs) so that’s been tough, especially since having the win at Mildenhall because it’s made me want to race more than often so it’s been difficult to not think about the racing and concentrate on my exams. If I was racing National Bangers, I doubt I would have been able to have raced anywhere near as much as I have with the Bangerstox so it’s been an ideal way to start racing after the Juniors. The van was excellent fun. Unfortunately it wouldn’t run very well for most of the meeting and when we got it running better I got put away (laughs) but that’s how it goes sometimes. I definitely want to do the vans again and I’m doing the Rookie (Banger) meeting in August which I’m really looking forward to and hopefully I will do some more banger meetings in the future.

Is there anyone else you would like to thank or mention?
My brother Ricky for everything he does to help me and also Chris Jacobs who helps take my cars to the meetings sometimes.