I’ve been involved in motor­s­port since the end of 2002 after my inaug­ural sprint at New Brighton. Myself and my friend Gor­don Holmes (a cham­pion Auto­tester) set off in a pair of Golf GTIs with the aim of fin­ish­ing approx­im­ately mid-field in our very stand­ard, very ordin­ary cars.

It would have gone a lot bet­ter for me if I hadn’t clipped a kerb, dis­lodging the bat­tery, which then bounced into the radi­ator and sub­sequently caused the car to over­heat. A quick decision was made, and Gor­don allowed me to bor­row his car for the remain­ing runs. And that was the start. A year later I had an Elise, and then I acci­dent­ally took a corner off (thank­fully with no chassis dam­age!) at the same track! Need­less to say, New Brighton always makes me nervous these days — I’ve not suffered dam­age at any other cir­cuit in the coun­try. Yet!

We achieved what we set out to do, com­par­ing well to exper­i­enced drivers in faster machinery. Gor­don stuck to his Autotest­ing, while I set plans to com­pete in the regional sprint cham­pi­on­ships. I quickly estab­lished myself by becom­ing Novice Cham­pion for 2003 in the ANWCC (North West) sprint cham­pi­on­ship. I’ve since gone on to take and hold the class record at Ain­tree, second over­all in the Liv­er­pool & Chester Cham­pi­on­ship. Although 2004 and 2005 were low-key due to other com­mit­ments, my aim is to attack the 2006 sea­son with a little more determ­in­a­tion and com­mit­ment. In the longer term I hope to take up cir­cuit racing — at least for one sea­son, and at a reas­on­ably high level. If I don’t, I’ll never know for sure whether I had the poten­tial to live up to my boy­hood dreams.

I com­pete through the Liv­er­pool Motor Club — a jolly nice bunch who organ­ise the excel­lent Ain­tree sprints as well as other events in the North West.

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