2006 News...

In the last few weeks I have attended the Speedworks Ginetta Scholarship run at Llandow Race Circuit near Cardiff.

I've now attended the 1st 2 rounds and in each round I got 25 minutes in the Ginetta G20, driving around the Llandow circuit. There were 83 other drivers who attended the first round, which had half the drivers on 1 day and the other half on the next day. Luckily I was on the 1st day, as the 2nd day was called off due to the snow. During morning we learned about some of the other aspects of being a racing driver with leading British Touring Car Championship racer Gareth Howell giving us some of his experiences. We also had to do talk for 3 minute, about ourselves, in front of the rest of the group which I think I did ok. In the afternoon we got to do some driving and my instructor was called Chris who was taller than me at about 6ft 5in. I learnt a great deal during the drive and enjoyed every minute of it. At the end of the drive we had a debrief and he pointed out where I could improve.

During the 2nd round, which I attended yesterday again at Llandow, the morning started with another Master class with a different racing driver called Neil Cunningham. I learnt a great deal from listening to Neil talk about his many and various drives in sports cars, single seater's and nascar. He also talked about getting sponsorship and the various aspects of driving racing cars. This included the importance of good set up on the car and personal preparation before a race. In the afternoon I had my 5 minute interview which I think went well and I was asked various questions about myself and why I had entered the competition. Later I had my drive in the Ginetta with my instructor Ollie. Again I had 25 minutes driving and I think it went reasonably well. At the end we had a debrief where Oliie told me some areas where I could still improve.

Update 26/02/07: I wasn't successful in getting throught to the 3rd round, but I learnt a great deal from the experience.

You can see more photos of me driving the Ginetta if you click here Racing Gallery.

Click here if you want to know more about the Speedworks Ginetta Scholarship.

Bye for now.