2005


Picture courtesy of Steve Jones Photography


The Hicost build was completed in February 2005. It first turned a wheel on a cold and windy Saturday morning at the historic Goodwood Circuit. It was a very successful if slightly daunting test with cars such as Imprezas, Chevrons and Porsches whizzing round with me.

The second ever outing for the car was the 750mc pre-race test day at Mallory Park. This proved an eye opener, showing it would be a tough and competitive championship but that I was starting from a good platform. This test day put me in good stead for my first ever car race meeting a week later at the same circuit.

The car felt strong in qualifying and what I didn’t realise at the time was that my fastest lap was good enough to put me in the top few and straight through to the final bypassing the heat.
The first race proved to be a tremendous success with the opportunity to learn about being overtaken and overtaking and I came home with a credible 2 points.

The 2005 contained a few hard lessons in racecraft and smoothing out various teething problems of a new car, but was a highly eventful and largely successful debut season in motorsport for me.
It was a fantastic learning experience and the realisation of a dream!


2006


Picture courtesy of Steve Jones Photography


The 2006 season picked up using the momentum of confidence from 2005.
Taking the lead for a few laps at the opening round at Mallory Park and Again at Brands Hatch during the heat, where I also got fastest lap in the final.
This early promise continued with good showings at various circuits, but due to work commitments I had to miss a few rounds and therefore couldn’t gather many championship points.


2007


Picture courtesy of Reilly Studios


I began the 2007 season fully prepared but again facing the prospect of missing a few meetings with work commitments.
This equated to only attending 2/3rds of the championship races, which makes the final championship points position of 10th from 68 drivers all the more pleasing for me.
This was a very successful season for me where I had established myself as a regular front runner and was mixing it with the top guys – taking fastest lap at Snetterton along the way and strong showings again at Mallory Park.


2008


Picture courtesy of Steve Jones Photography


The 2008 season held big hopes for me, with a team aim of top 5 in the final championship standings.
This plan started well with a strong showing on the second round at Lydden Hill.
This was my first ever time on the circuit, and so I was ecstatic to achieve pole position for the Saturday heat race.
The bad luck began to creep in when I was bumped off the circuit into retirement. We remained positive for the second day of racing as the conditions turned very unfavorable with driving snow, where I was holding a clear 3rd before the snow clogged my air-intake causing a misfire, missing out on my first podium and dropping to 6th.
We kept strong for the next round at Cadwell where my qualifying time put me on the second row of the grid for Sunday’s final. The good fortune ended pretty quickly as I was caught up in a huge accident on Saturday’s final which ended resulted in a few physical injuries including 2 week long concussion and a heavily damaged car.
After the weekend, we decided to take a rest for several months to fully repair myself and the car.
The first two meetings back at Donington and Silverstone were dogged with hidden tuning troubles stemming from Cadwell crash, but I was beginning to get back on track.
Things began to pick up again after qualifying 14th of 38 at Snetterton where I battled my way up to 9th and 7th after a few good racing fights.
The championship season ended at Mallory Park.
Qualifying went well, achieving 4th of around 35.
The race was action packed with some close battles.
I was in second position challenging for the lead when a moment at Gerards corner put me down to 13th before battling back up to 8th.
Despite the couple of months missed by cadwell repairs, we made 17th of 60 in the final championship standings.

The year will now end with a last minute deal to drive at the 'Birkett Relay' 6 hour race at silverstone