Welcome to my first blog for BTCCCrazy – a quick peek into my race weekend. I hope you like it and I hope I can do as good a job as Matt Hamilton did before me. Speaking of Matt I want to wish him all the best and I hope he returns to touring cars soon.

So last weekend it was Snetterton, although for me, the weekend really starts on the Wednesday when we set off for the circuit. I drive my own truck to all the meetings which surprises a lot of people, but after touring all over Europe in the WTCC last year, a trip round the UK is a piece of cake! All the preparation has already been done back at the workshop, so Thursday is just spent getting set up at the garage, re-prepping, the suspension and cleaning the car. The rest of the team arrive on Friday and Saturday and they do all the set-up work, the gearing, the engine management and everything ready for Saturday morning.

And Saturday couldn’t come soon enough. I always want to race, so I was glad the mid-season break was over and we could get back to racing! Even though I’d driven in the WTCC at Brands Hatch three weeks earlier, the team had a good laugh when I struggled to put my suit on telling me I’d put weight on!

Free Practice went as well as we expected. I was matching the same times in every lap as Darren Turner’s time when he drove round here in this same car, so the car was on the pace but we needed to find a little bit extra to get in the top ten and match everyone else on the grid. We didn’t test here two weeks ago but I drove about 20 laps and with Darren’s data that gave us a heads up, so I had no excuses.

Qualifying, I was praying for rain and it came my way, but it seemed to play in to other peoples’ hands really. We were aiming to get in the top ten and were holding in the top five for most of the time and then, for some reason there was a window where the other drivers got quicker. Although if you see the times, another couple of tenths and I would have easily been in sixth, even fifth, so it was close but it’s the best qualifying I’ve had so far, so I can’t complain really – but you always want more. I wouldn’t do this game if I didn’t want more all the time.

It wasn’t forecast to rain on race day though so with a dry set-up we headed for the track. It’s a tight start at Snetterton and with the Airwaves BMW and the WSR BMW behind us, the main aim was to get a good start and at the same time hope no-one in front of me had a bad start! I knew that Kane alongside me would be pushing hard, but he didn’t really seem to get a quick getaway. Luckily I did so that was good! I managed to get alongside Paul O’Neil into the first corner and got round the outside. I fully trusted Paul that nothing was going to happen and it didn’t, it was great driving so full respect to him. My pace was pretty good throughout the race although there were some handling issues and I had Steven Kane and Paul O’Neill behind me chasing me down. Kane was obviously a lot quicker, but I knew he would be because his tyres were going to last. In lap eight I understeered in to Sear corner when he overtook me, but I still had O’Neill behind and I just had to focus on not making any mistakes, keeping my position and not let him catch me. We’ve had too many DNF’s this season so we were hoping for a strong finish to give us a good second race, and we got it on lap 15 when I squeezed passed Andrew Jordan at the Bombhole into ninth place before Matt Neal punctured and I finished in eighth.

The first race was a learning curve really and we needed to make some set up changes for the second race. Starting two places further up I was hoping to run at the pace of the front-runners and maybe grab another few places too. Again the plan was to get off the line as quick as possible. I saw James Nash in front of me got a slow start and going in to turn one, I managed to get past him. At this point I’m in seventh going for sixth, not worrying too much when Kane and Matt Neal have a bit of a coming together ahead of me and I need to back out to stop myself from hitting them. The next thing I know I’ve been tagged up the rear by Nash which has sent me sideways, punting me on to the grass, and then I’m just a passenger. The car came flying back on to the circuit and unfortunately Paul O’Neill was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he’s collected me. When you’re sideways you’re just thinking “save it, save it, try and get out of it” and you hope you’ll straighten round and get out of it, but when someone else finishes you off, there’s nothing you can do. I looked to my right and there’s Paul and we both just looked at each other going “what the ****?!” The Marshals ran over and said to me “Are you okay Tom? That was a massive hit!” I didn’t feel like it had been, but then looking at the car there was a lot of damage. So that was it, race over – no result, no position, no points, no prize money, loads of damage – gearbox, suspension, disc, pads, bumpers, twisted shell – unbelievable really.

Once we got the car back to the garage we had just an hour and half to turn all that around and put the set up on it for the last race. I was confident that the team would get the car out, but it was always going to be tight. So it was a great effort from my team when they did and I want to say a huge thank you to them for their hard work. We needed to spend as little as possible on repairing the car, like not putting on new bumpers, just to keep costs down So it’s a good job my dad’s great with the gaffer tape!

There were a lot of comments as the car headed for the grid with the circuit commentators and other teams all saying they didn’t expect to see us. Starting from the back in twentieth was a nightmare, but I was fired up, made another good start and took a few places in the first lap and following a couple of offs further up the field I was up to twelfth by the third lap. I ended up finishing in 11th overall which was all right. We showed what we’re capable of even with the car not handling well.

Overall it was an up and down weekend, a bit disappointing as we didn’t have the opportunity to demonstrate anything at the front of the field, but we can take positives out of it – it showed the team can deal with any incident whatever happens. And unless you’ve rolled over and damaged the roof then you’re not going to get much worse.

There were a lot of parts going back into the truck in pieces at the end of Sunday and it’s only a ten day turn around from when we finish here until we’re on our way to the next circuit. We’re a small team and there’s only me and my brother working full-time on the car, with everyone else just working part-time, so there’s a lot for us to do ahead of Silverstone. We live to fight another day but it’s been expensive!

Thanks for all your support. See you at Silverstone.

Tom #22

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.