Blog A Day - Day 22: My 2025 Year In Review (Pt. 3)

Chapter 5: Motorsport Mad May

In May, I FINALLY completed my "Triple Header Challenge" at Brands Hatch, after 2 previous years of trying.

I went to Brands Hatch on three consecutive weekends seeing GT World Challenge, the BTCC and partaking in the Inflatable 5K on the third.

On my way home from Brands- that doesn’t help at all…

On my way home from the BTCC event, I was distracted by a Tent-box being erected on top of a rather small car, (small hatch/hot hatch) and drifted into the kerb, catching my tyre on the kerb, but fortunately William and his trusty van Bert were luckily on hand to rescue me.

Especially since he’d long left Brands and was well on his way home.

On the week after the final round of the “Triple Header”, I went to Oulton Park for the first time to see British GT (and GB3) - and oh boy what an experience it was!!!

It’s unbelievable how close to the cars you can get at Clay Hill - the view from the top of Clay is astonishing - especially as you have cars literally roar underneath you, and you’re so high up you can see the cars at the other end of the circuit.

The thing I liked the most was how hidden it was - one minute you’re going down rural country roads, the next there’s a brick wall - if you didn’t know about Oulton, you wouldn’t know there was an MSV grade circuit just beyond the wall.

It’s certainly in my Top 3 tracks (besides Brands’ accessibility, Donnington's elevation).

My only wish was to be able to see a little bit more of the final sector of the track - but the woodland walk was still lovely.

Chapter 6: Juicy June!

If May was the month of spectator-ing, June was the month of participating!

Think 2 trackdays was bonkers enough, On Monday 2nd June, I simultaneously organised two holidays - one to Greece, and another to Disneyland.

I promised to myself I’d keep the iRacing and real-life years in review separate, but winning the iRacing Nurburgring 24 Hours in GT4 class? I’m not going to keep quiet about that one!

To kick the month off, it was the iRacing Nurburgring 24 Hours, the second of only two Special Events that include the GT4 class.

Through a naff (okay “somewhat decent”) split and good drivers in our car, we’d win our class - marking my first iRacing Nurburgring 24 Hour win - and first Special Event win.

Sure, it was a less popular time-slot, but a class win is a win and everyone drove a stellar race A huge thank you must go out to Will, Xavier and Trevor whom all put in an amazing effort to pull off the win!

On 21st June, it was exactly month until my next Track-day.

To mark the occasion, I wanted to mark the "unoffical" start of my racing career by going back to where it all began: TeamSport indoor karting.

By this point, it had been 7 years since I had last driven a kart - and 10 years since I had last driven a racing car.

My local TeamSport venue's longest kart race was a 50-Lap (50 minute) long race - and I thought - what better way to mark my return to racing than to jump into a 50-lapper at TeamSport.

I was looking forward to this race as I had been trying to book this (race) since early April due to scheduling conflicts, and lack of participants. Whilst only 5/7 drivers showed up, it was a tough race. I got stuck behind a slower driver, and for 25 minutes/25 laps stuck at his pace with no way to pass.

I was unleashed half way through the race - or managed to find a way by, and finished 4th/5th with the 3rd fastest time.

The lap-times being incredibly close.

After the race, I visited the Spa Valley Steam Train with a friend from school whom I hadn’t seen in two years - before I moved out!

Following this, we went to "F1 Arcade" (a F1 Simulator arcade) and we both had a blast - my friend winning the second two of three races.

The good news is, all this faffing about, and all these dates and events means that the long-awaited Trackday on 21st July - was approaching at a very rapid rate.

And before I knew it, it was July and the Trackday was 3 weeks away. Chapter 7: Even Jucier July!

Thankfully, July passed very quickly - doing a spot of kayaking, seeing a friend, preparing for the iRacing Spa 24 Hours on the 5th of July, before the main event on the 12th - 13th July - before…just like that…

the Trackday was a week away, and the car was getting a final shakedown.

Then it was the day of the trackday, which was an absolute dream come true. If I had (prior) experience, I would have jumped straight in and started racing in the SuperSport Endurance Cup in 2026 - but I wanted to get my feet wet, and slip into the "shallow end" first. Have the experience of a race weekend first in something slightly less powerful, and a slightly more forgiving environment - before diving head-first into a season of 250BHP anger.

My thinking was, I can make mistakes in the C1, and basically get my feet wet and learn how a race weekend works in a mid-field team, before having to worry about performing at Cameron’s pace.

Photo Credit: Emily Gillett

What surprised me the most was just how instant everything was - instant power, very sharp turn-in, brakes…I admit I don’t think I found the limit,

It was one of those days I won’t be forgetting in a long time.

Okay, we had a slight boost issue to begin with (when I hit fourth/the turbo/boost, it just went nowhere) which was later fixed.

The weather radar said there was a slight chance of rain, but thankfully (or bizarrely) it only rained at one corner, but this was only towards the end of the session.

But hey, I learnt how the car feels when things get sketchy.

I suppose, at the end of the day - it gave me a goal - "this is where I want to be, this is what I want to race in" - and with my eyes on the C1 series next year, I could start building a picture of how I was going to get there.

I immense fun - and the best news of the day was that my next experience was only 3 short weeks later - in - ironically - the C1.

Chapter 8: Anarchy August

After a week (and a weekend) of work, Sunday 10th August was upon me.

I'd finish work, and then drive to the hotel, for a well-earnt rest. 11th August

Shortly after 8am, I’d arrive at the track, wide-eyed and ready for a day of action.

Ironically, whilst the lowest-powered of the three cars I tested, this was the biggy - the most important. This one was the one I was eyeing up to drive in 2026 - If I could have a blast in this, I would be one step closer to becoming a racing driver.

I had paid £500 for half a day, to be shared with the team owner and my team-mate for next season Ollie Anslow.

After signing in, I had a bit of a nosey around to see what else was there - a classic Elan, a “Time Attack” Mazda RX-7, Ariel Atom, and a rather interesting “Revolution” race car - made by the same people as made the radical - a 500bhp monster weighing less than 1000kg - that’s open wheel territory!

Also present was “Global Lights Motorsport” a prototype-esk car with a light carbon-fibre shell.

Anyway, after a captivating briefing, I was on circuit at 9am.

The day was incredible - my highlight was taking one of SCR’s guests around for some laps of Donington “you’ve only just met me, but I appreciate your confidence in letting me drive the guest around!”

We had a right laugh - and I had a great day, despite slightly dinging up their car

(First a Lotus tried a grassy pass - which involved barging me out of the way), then at the end of the day, the engine expired with me behind the wheel.

But it’s only encouraged me to want to race more!

Photo Credit: Rebecca Howland

To finish August, I went to Disneyland Paris for their summer "Music Concert" event. Admittedly, it was a bit of a disaster.

I had two holidays back-to-back, on driving to Surrey (where I'd park my car for the holiday), my car developed a fault.

The following day we were due to fly out, and I'd need to pick my friend up. After a lot of scrambling around, I managed to figure an alternative. It was just one of those days - our flight was the last of the day out of London Southend, and due to some faffing, we missed it. cue a lot of faffing about later, I was able to rebook the flights to Gatwick - but the original train-line we were going to use had no trains running. Once we got in the air and on the holiday, I spent almost the entire time organising my car getting fixed at VERY short notice. I cut the holiday short by one day to get back to my car - and the car sorted in time to have the car ready to drive back to work the following day. after one day of work, I returned to Surrey, (the car now working), and then jetted off for the second holiday (Greece), which went a lot smoother.

But upon landing? I was in for quite the rough ride...