Hi Guys, you don't realise just how proud Matt made me at Brands Hatch. Matt has only raced in karts once this year in the Gold cup at Wigan where he put it on pole by 3 tenths and came 3rd in the final after suffering a lack of straight line speed. His only car racing experience was three round of FBMW in 2007 followed by the world finals in Valencia where he came 15th overall.
At Brands Hatch on the Saturday Matt qualified 6th for race 1, for race 2 he was in 2nd spot until the final minute of qualifying when two drivers pushed him down to 4th on the very last lap, followed by another P4 for race 3. Considering his total lack of experience this was a phenomenal achievement, particularly as he had out qualified drivers who had 2 years of FPA experience, or driven F3 or FRenaults in the past season. Amazingly, he even out qualified Nial Quinn in Q2 & Q3 and Nial is a very experienced driver and is currently Irelands A1GP reserve driver!
Race day was very disappointing for us with a broken gearbox causing a poor start and a DNF in race 1 followed by a DNF in race 2, after running in 4th place for most of the race, following a missed gear at Paddock Hill bend and a very creditable 4th place in race 3. Matt pushed Jolyon Palmer around Brands Hatch for many laps and he has driven thousands of laps in an FPA and hundreds of laps around Brands Hatch. For further details of Matt's Autumn Trophy experience please visit his web site and if interested please request a free DVD of the races.
He made a few mistakes, which cost him dearly, but, he certainly proved to me and many others that he has the ability to race at the front against drivers with significantly more experience.
Matt will be racing TKM Extreme at Clay Pigeon in December where he will be selling all his old karting equipment, so please come along to say hello and pick up a bargain along the way.
Unfortunately, his race engine is not for sale as this has been promised to Chris Kasch and it's about time we gave it to him!
|
|