A Great Start to the Year
Its been ages since I last posted here, largely because I haven’t had a moment to sit down and write.
The start to the 2008 season has been my best yet in motorsport, the racing is going well and the commentary is growing and growing.
The European season got off the best possible sport, when we had a title sponsor - Spring Group (www.spring.com) sign on for the year, which is fantastic. Already we have a great relationship and it is working out very well.
On track it has been even better. The first meeting of the year at Dijon was mixed as I was learning both the car and track, whilst trying to shake out the winter cobwebs. The first race was a bit of a disaster when I managed to both jump the start and get taken off in a first lap incident. Luckily I recovered without damage and eventually with the penalty time added finished 9th. The following day I made amends in the second race to take 3rd position in arctic conditions where I was under pressure from a gaggle of cars for the whole race.
On to Most in the Czech Republic for another good weekend. Throughout the meeting I never had truly competitive pace over a single lap and qualified down in 6th. The Most circuit was flowing with a lot of high speed entries into slow corners and not unlike Croft in characteristic. The first chicane in particular was devilishly tight!
Having watched some of the other races I knew to expect carnage at the first corner. Sure enough, following a poor start I held back into turn one and watched everyone else fall off, leaving me 6th once again. From then on the remainder of the race was about picking the cars in front off to claim another podium with 3rd position. Needless to say I was delighted, especially as racing at Most we got grid girls, garlands and champagne all for the same entry fee as a UK meeting.
The plan for race 2 was to repeat the exercise and that’s exactly what I did, this time making a good start, and following a good dice with Joe Wezel for 4th place I was out on my own promoted to 3rd when James Birch’s engine failed mid race. So another strong podium, leaving me 3rd in the Championship after 4 races.
Out of the cockpit things have been going equally well, as my first couple of commentary dates have led to a lot of successive work and very positive feedback including several e-mails from spectators which is very pleasing. Having attended a number of meetings as a spectator and as a race, my aim is to combine being entertaining and informative and so far it’s working. My first TV show will be airing some time in June and I’ll be posting the date up on this site as soon as I know it
