At the age of 21 

I decided it was time for me to get back into Motorsport and back into the driving seat. I went and watched the final round of the Fueltopia Barrel Sprint to see a upcoming championship series in the flesh. That night I went home and searched online for many different platforms of car to use. I saw that the MX5 was a competitive cheap car. After a few days of searching online, I stumbled across a semi rolling rust free shell. I immediately messaged the seller and arranged a visit. A few days later the shell was sat on my driveway at home and my build started. I built the car up over 3 months working on the car every day after work and on the weekend’s weather it was raining or not. I fully committed 3 months for this car to be perfect. The time came around where my mum wanted her driveway back and I had to move the car roadside. With insurance on the car and a fresh MOT and a set of number plates the car was now stored roadside for progressive maintenance and building.

Fueltopia held an open test day and I trailered my car up there. I was awful to begin with, spinning the car and driving like I was karting, I was not used to having to pull a handbrake to help transition the car. As the day went on, other drivers suggested changing my driving style and offered other tips and other parts to change on the car.

With only one week between the test day and Round 1 of the Fueltopia Barrel Sprint Championship 

Parts were ordered but did not arrive in time. 

Round 1 

Was a success and I managed to qualify in the top 16. My first battle was againt a RWD converted Subaru Impreza which took the win knocking me out of the event that day. After this round I ordered more parts, a 6 speed gearbox, lightened flywheel, semi slick rear tyres and lighter and wider wheels.

Saw these changes on the car, during the morning practice I was sat in 1st place for RWD with a fast lap time. 

Qualifying came soon and again I ended up in the top 16, my first battle was against a Nissan R33 Skyline, the race was level up to the entrance of the 3rd barrel. Managing to gain more traction than the Skyline I managed to pull away and win the battle. This meant I made it through to the top 8. Next battle put me up against a Turbo charged MX5, again this was a close battle but the faster car took the win.

Round 3 

Was a very similar story, quick against high powered heavy cars and similar to lighter lower powered cars. But was knocked out of the first battle by a similar car to mine.

I decided to up my game, new engine management and a Subaru Impreza turbo on the side of the head the car was faster than before. With only a short time on the dyno, the car was rather unreliable and got hot very quickly. With this we just managed to qualify in the top 16 and the car began to cough and splutter so I didn’t have the cars full potential.

Next came round 5 

This was held at Ultimate Street Car. This event was spectated by 70,000 people. This event was a huge success but with a slight oil leak I had to be very careful. With watching oil temps and pressures, I lacked watching the rest of the car and failed to notice a cambelt tensioner had started to come loose. On a practice launch, the tensioner shot off and my car died. A few other drivers pushed me back to the paddock and helped me fix the car. Again the car didn’t want to run that great and with the timing of the engine only set by eye we wasn’t running 100%. I persevered and finished in the top 16. 

The next day Fueltopia hosted the European Burnout Championship, with a poor performing engine and some spare tyres I thought “why not” 2 x 2 min runs of sitting close to the rev limiter, on the second run I popped a tyre which scored me an extra 10 points. This put me in 2nd place and I became vice champion of Europe for EBC!!

Second to last round of the year 

Saw the car with a fresh set of tyres, a new respray, the car worked perfectly in the wet. This was my first outing in the wet with the turbo and really had to make sure I didn’t lose any traction and lose any time. This time again I made top 8 and got knocked out by a faster turbo MX5.

Final round of the year was just 2 weeks to go, zero changes to the car due to time constraints. The car hadn’t even been washed between rounds. The car was washed on the morning of the event. The cool weather and the turbo worked perfectly, I was running on full boost and setting some very quick times, everything worked perfectly so I didn’t do too many practices as the car was fully dialled in. 

End of the season I finished 6th in the championship with a home built car I was astounded. The friends I made, the partners I joined, and the car I built. 2017 was such a good season and I can't wait to get back into the seat for next year 2018.

My dad used to take me to my local kart track every Wednesday night. We used to hire out one of their corporate karts and spend a few hours each week driving lap after lap and self teaching ourselves how to get quicker.

Dad surprised me with a new kart for myself, not knowing what he purchased as we were so new to motorsport he brought a twin engine prokart, which was too big and too heavy for me to drive. After removing one engine and adding 6inch pedal extensions I was just able to drive the kart. We used this for a year at the same track until dad was able to purchase the correct kart for my needs. We brought a BIZ Kart Cadet Chassis and a single Honda GX160 engine. This was a MSA homologated chassis for competition use. For 2 more years we practised at a few more tracks still not knowing a lot about karting or motorsport. For these 2 years we only knew what slick tyres were and we drove on these in all weather conditions including snow!

I took my ARKS kart licence, this allowed me to compete in MSA events. We entered Formula 6 which was the biggest British championship. Being only 8 years old in my first season I was racing against alot of drivers who were much older and had much more experience than me, but I performed excellently, finishing 5th in the championship. In the years I was racing in karts I also raced in other club championships, entering a number of club championships. I won back to back winter and summer championships.

At the age of 12 

Before moving up into a bigger class series, where I would have raced bigger and professional race teams, my dad had to sit down with me and tell me that he could not financially afford to fund me anymore. Being so young this was such a hard thing for me to hear. But also I was just old enough to understand. For years I watched various other drivers I used to compete with reach heights of BTCC and GP2/3 and even F1 tests.