DOWN THE PUB
Age: 25 Lives: Cheltenham HFF title contender
He’s chasing the HFF title “Over the winter we’d got the car and I thought it would be really cool to finally get the Historic Formula Ford Championship. I thought if I scrimped on a few things we could probably afford to do it. The support from my backers helps so we went to Donington Park to see how we got on. It started with a win so we thought we’d better do the championship.”
The schedule has been busy “The last four or five rounds have been full on because we’ve only had two weeks in between the race weekends. So it’s been a case of long days at work and preparing the car in the evenings. Luckily I’ve got a very patient girlfriend called Ellie. Marcus Pye owns the car and has very kindly lent it to me for the season. I look after it and run it.”
He’s battling with Cameron Jackson “We had a couple of wins at Thruxton, which was great and a second and first at Silverstone, which meant even scores with Cameron Jackson. At Brands we were second and third and then second and first, so that was only a one-point difference. I think we’re clear of everyone else in the championship.”
This is unfinished business “I nearly won the championship in 2011. The gear linkage came loose at Brands in September and when I went to take fourth gear I got second going down the pit straight and it destroyed the engine. That was the penultimate round and I was leading the points at the time. But that DNF tipped it away from me and Benn Simms won the title.”
Family pride is at stake “Last time around I missed the title and both dad [2009] and Sam [2013] have won it. Now I’ve got the opportunity to put it right.”
It’s cost-effective racing “You can turn up in a van and run yourself, win races and go home. There’s mutual respect among the frontrunners and no one is trying to do anything bad. At the end of the day, we’ve all got jobs and it costs us our earnings to come racing.”