photo by AE Photography
Last weekend was definitely a roller coaster of emotions. I counted myself lucky to be at the Formula Ford Festival at all and it was only the fact that some of my great supporters were able to rally round at the last minute that I was able to take up the free entry I already had for winning the overall Euro-Cup honours in the summer.
Then on Friday my younger brother Jon was hospitalised with a really nasty bug that had seen him going downhill all week and this was very worrying. Although we naturally have our share of good natured sibling rivalry he is among my loyalist supporters and has worked as my kart racing mechanic and has sometimes been my no.2 Formula Ford mechanic this year giving Tom a hand. As a massive fitness fanatic and gym goer himself he is also acts as my personal fitness trainer and loves giving me a hard time! Thankfully he now seems to be slowly getting better so I suppose he will be back to giving me some grief sometime soon!
The Festival itself couldn’t have gone much better for me. I qualified on pole in my group and led all four of my races of heat, quarter final, semi- final & final from lights to flag; sounds easy doesn’t it? Well sounding easy and actually being easy are two very different things. The tight Brands Hatch Indy circuit doesn’t allow anyone to build up any significant advantage and it was extremely tight amongst the front runners. Antti Buri & Steijn Schothorst in particular enjoyed putting me under pressure but I soaked it up when I had to, stood firm and took advantage of any errors they made to give myself breathing space when I could. We had fresh tyres for the final and I have to say they didn’t seem to work as well as the set we took off that had done qualifying and the three previous races and while I out there I found myself wishing we hadn’t changed! But never mind I prevailed and made it to the chequered flag in first place and what a great feeling that was. When I worked at the Festival as a mechanic for Jamun driver Tim Blanchard in 2008 I dreamt of coming back and winning the event and now I had done it and I was very proud to receive the Neil Shanahan Trophy for my victory as well as the John Nichol and Roger Pedrick Trophies for taking the top British & English driver places. In fact I retained these last two from 2010.
My supporters, my family and I of course were elated with what we had achieved which was the icing on the cake of an absolutely fantastic year which has at times tested our resilience but it has all been worth it. A massive thank you to everyone and of course not least to Jamun racing for giving me a great car all year.
I haven’t quite finished working with Jamun Racing yet though. We have another project that we are now working on together which is quite exciting and I am looking forward to the next instalment of that at the end of this week and I’ll definitely be updating you about it in my next blog. My next event will be the Henry Surtees Foundation Karting event at Buckmore Park on Thursday this week. This is an extremely worthy cause and one that I am proud to take part in. I have a tremendous admiration and respect for John Surtees who I shall be seeing at the event. Why the powers that be haven’t honoured John with a knighthood is beyond me and I’d like to see this situation rectified soon.
Very sadly the joy and elation that I experienced when going to bed on Sunday evening soon disappeared early on Monday morning when I awoke to the shocking news that Dan Wheldon had lost his life in Las Vegas. Dan was somebody who was a real inspiration to me and no mean Formula Ford racer himself having finished as runner up to Jenson Button in the 1998 Formula Ford Festival. I always found it frustrating that Dan’s great achievements were hardly reported on in the UK except in the motorsport press. To compete in the Indy 500, arguably the most famous motor race in the world is no mean achievement. To win it is amazing. To win it more than once places you among the all-time greats especially when combined with the IRL Championship title that Dan claimed in 2005. How cruel that just as Dan’s career was getting back on track after a lean period that he should lose his life in such tragic circumstances. He will be sorely missed and my deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathy go to all of Dan’s family and friends.
The season may be more or less over for 2011 but I have a very busy time ahead in the coming weeks and I will be back blogging about all of that quite soon.
All the best
Scott
