All I need say is what a fantastic year!!!

Having not raced a full season since 2003, I was not too expectant of securing a drive for the 2008 season. However, with the success of my one-off outing in the Viper last year, and a potential budget secured all was looking well. I felt very comfortable being involved with Brookspeed International Motorsport and would like to thank Martin Braybrook for working with us to put a deal together for 2008, as his support was invaluable.

Unfortunately, the budget we had was soon to disappear, and horrifically, this was in the same week my Mother was diagnosed with cancer. Not a good start to the year!

Much like our 2003 Formula Renault Winning campaign, we were hell bent on racing the full season, but weren’t going to remortgage the house AGAIN!

Thankfully, through my family, myself, and some other amazing people I was able to pull together enough cash to get the season underway. This season was inevitably going to be done the hard way….

Having raced in the Brookspeed Viper in the season finale in 2007, I knew the team, and knew I could do a good job in their car. It was however important to have a strong team-mate if we were to put up a decent assault on the championship. I became aware that Jon Barnes was interested in racing alongside me, this was great news. I knew Jon from our karting days, and since then he has won many car racing championships and even been nominated for Autosport young driver of the year. Before long the team was official, and we were looking forward to what would be a very good year.

Pre season testing is a luxury I have never been fortunate enough to participate in, so once again it was straight into the racing. It all began at Oulton Park, we had rain, snow and were thrown out of qualifying due to a small ride-height infringement. Oh dear! However, once the race got underway we showed good pace, and I was able to scythe my way through the field to 3rd place, from a pit-lane start. Unfortunately, I made an uncharacteristic error and miss-shifted just before handing over to Jon. The car lost power only 1 lap later and the engine let go. Through hard work though, we were able to fit another engine borrowed from Robin Mortimer at RPM, and score our first points of the season in the second round.



Whilst this wasn’t a dream start to the year, we could see that we had good speed, and myself and Jon were working very well as a team. The start of things to come!

After a snowy Oulton Park, we moved on to an equally snowy Knockhill in Scotland. I had never been to Knockhill before which made this trip quite exciting. What made it tricky was the fact that we had to run in both an engine and differential, so there was no time to acclimatise myself to the circuit. Nevertheless we came away with a brace of 2nd place finishes, clearly stating our claim on the 2008 championship.

By the time we came to the fifth and sixth rounds at Rockingham, we knew we should be challenging for wins, and went all out to achieve this. We were helped by an adjustment to the GT3 equalisation, which allowed us to remove an engine restrictor that had been robbing us of equal performance when compared to pretty much all of the cars on the grid. Rockingham, being my home race, saw a lot of support for me, this included the Peterborough Saxons American football team. The team of towering sports stars joined me on the grid before my race, adding to the already magnificent spectacle of millions of pounds worth of sportscars. The first race at Rockingham was one of the wettest I have ever taken part in, so wet that the organisers were considering calling the race off. I was in third position on the grid, and we started behind the pace car. When it came in, I was quickly able to gain the lead, and from there simply pulled away. It was still extraordinarily wet, with at least 5 sections of the track completely submerged causing the mighty dodge viper, with its large wheels to aquaplane. We ploughed on, gaining a lucky break in our pitstop, to find ourselves a long way ahead of the opposition, all that was left was for Jon to bring it home in one piece, which he duly did. Our first win of the season! Not only did we achieve the win, but we took the lead of the British GT Championship!! Unfortunately, at the start of the second race of the weekend saw Jon have a spin resulting in some crash damage to the car and no points. We still held the lead of the championship though despite this misfortune. We were on a roll!

The next two rounds of the championship were held at Snetterton. The weather for the weekend was most definitely varied, with torrential rain for race one, and possibly the sunniest and warmest weather of the year for race two. We had a new, fierce competitor for this weekend, this being the impressive Ford GT driven by the 2007 British GT Champions Alex Mortimer and Bradley Ellis. As with the previous round, we knew we had a good setup on the car, which myself and Jon worked hard to achieve on the test day, and as championship leaders were confident going in to the first race. We now even had a target on the car, that being the white sun-strip reserved solely for the leading drivers of the championship. Race one was as Rockingham, unbelievably wet, almost to the point of being dangerous. Nevertheless we ‘paddled’ on, aquaplaning our way through an hours race. I was able to climb up the order, handing over the car to Jon at the head of the field, and once again, we were able to triumph over the rest of the field… victory number two! Following us closely behind was the Europe conquering Ford GT driven by last years champions. The second race saw a complete turnaround in the weather, and we were greeted by bright sunshine, enough for me to burn myself!!! This time Jon started, and we knew were going to have to push hard to beat the Ford GT’s raw pace, which in the dry was at least a second faster than our Viper. At the half way stage, and after making our mandatory pitstop, I was roughly 8 seconds behind the Ford, and battled hard to catch them for the remainder of the hour. I was able to close the gap to within a second, until lapped traffic caused me a slight delay right at the end of the race. This was no problem though, as we had pulled yet further ahead in the championship, and were leaving the long queue of chasing Ferraris for dust!



AT the end of June it was time to visit the UK’s fastest circuit, Thruxton. I hadn’t visited Thruxton since 2004 in Formula Renault, but was looking forward to stretching the Vipers legs on a circuit that we were convinced would suit the car, and extending our lead which already stood at 16 points. It was my turn to set the car up in what was to be extremely limited testing as is always the case at Thruxton, and soon I handed over to Jon. Disaster struck though as the ABS failed soon into Jon’s track time, resulting in one very ruined front tyre. The ABS failure meant that there was no feel in the brake pedal whatsoever, and making matters worse was the fact that there was nothing regulating braking pressure to each corner, truly a nightmare when slowing from 165mph to just 40! As hard as the team tried to resolve the problem, it simply would not go away, this meant qualifying and racing in simply nightmare conditions. Myself and Jon were well aware that just one bad lock-up on a front wheel could result in a tyre failure and our race being ended, so we knew we had to be very careful.

Qualifying didn’t go well, as the name of the game was preservation of the tyres and equipment, safe in the knowledge that ultimate pace was not possible with the ABS not working. It was clear we could have lapped at least a second faster with no problems.

I started the race from 6th, and made my way up to third until a safety car period halted my progress and forced us to pit… along with everyone else. What was seen in the pits will be remembered for years as simply ridiculous, with over 20 cars trying to squeeze into a tiny area. Despite being blocked by other cars, we exited the pits 3rd, which after a little bit of position swapping is where we finished. Our closest championship rivals once again finished behind us, further extending that all important championship lead.

Sundays race saw us starting a little further back in 11th, but early on in the race was a major incident involving a couple of Ginettas, which caused Bradley Ellis to spear off the road and make heavy contact with a barrier. The race was red flagged and thankfully Bradley was OK. The race had now been shortened and Jon lined up again to take the restart. In no time at all Jon made excellent progress to put us 3rd for the final stint of the weekend. After another great handover I pursued the leaders and thanks to the mighty power of the Viper, was able to pass them with ease and easily held on to take the flag for our 3rd win of the season! Need I mention extending our lead again?

There was a little hiccup at the end of the race when we were deemed to be speeding in the pit lane, along with two other cars. This even caused us to be awarded the incorrect trophy at the podium celebrations. However, along with the other offenders, we were cleared after data from the cars proved the gauges to be incorrect. A heart stopping moment all the same.
Whilst we knew we were performing well, to go home after finishing 1st and 3rd with a mammoth car problem was simply magical. It was at this point that we realised the championship trophy was almost in touching distance, and these views were echoed by many others in the British GT paddock.



Brands Hatch couldn’t have come any sooner, there was a great chance we could seal the championship with a good run, and we REALLY wanted to triumph before the month long break to round 13 at Silverstone. Although this was a little presumptuous, we were confident of achieving this, especially heading into the weekend with a 25 point lead. All we needed to do was keep our closest rivals from gaining 5 points on us. We were typically quick in testing, and the Vipers seemed to be enjoying the fast sections of the GP circuit. When it came to qualifying, I was actually on provisional pole for most of the session, but unfortunately was beaten by just a couple of tenths by a CRS Ferrari. This was still fantastic though, and actually the best qualifying position of the year for us.

For the Sunday race, the weather was good and we were in high spirits, who wouldn’t be knowing it was possible to seal the British GT championship at any moment?! After being squeezed by a brace of CRS Ferraris I slotted into a conservative 3rd place at the start of the first race, but within just a few laps I was leading and held the rest of the grid at bay. The lead was ours until we made our driver change, allowing Jon to take hold of the car. The change allowed a couple of cars to get past us, but Jon quickly got into his stride, retook the lead, and pulled away. All eyes at this time were on the fight for 2nd place, as if the cars fell in the right position we would be champions before the end of the day. Jon powered on to take our 4th win of the season, and it was the Christians in Motorsport Ferrari of Allan Simonsen who emerged in 2nd place. This meant that Simonsen and Lester were now the only drivers that could mathematically beat us to the title and the odds were stacked against them, needing to win all the remaining races and for us to score no more than one point! Although it wasn’t official, we knew we had it now! Myself and Jon could feel ourselves relaxing now the pressure was really off.

Race two was an eventful one to say the least, Jon started 3rd and quickly moved us into second place behind our only championship contender, the number 23 Christians in Motorsport car. Simonsen, doing everything he could to win the remaining races in the number 23 Ferrari was quick, but appeared to slow as Jon was chasing him down and eventually pulled into the pits with an alternator related problem! That was it, regardless of what happened we had become the 2008 British GT Champions!! Our race wasn’t to end there though, Jon continued in the lead until handing over to me. Our pitstop dropped us down the order, and I came across cars exiting the pitlane, who were racing us for position. I was quickly able to pass the 22GT Aston martin and ABG Viper to regain the lead, only to find the pace car coming onto the circuit to deal with a beached Aston Martin at Sheene curve. When the lights went green to restart racing, I immediately pulled away from the cars behind until disaster struck, I could feel a problem with the rear left wheel. It felt like there might be a puncture, but I had experienced this feedback from the car twice before, and last time it proved to be a faulty hub causing the wheel nut to loosen. I informed the team over the radio, but with no clear call to enter the pits I could not risk heading for pit road only to be sat waiting. I took the decision to carry on for another lap so to minimise lost time, although it turned out later that the team were in fact ready for me. Another problem was brewing at this time, as a result of the left hand side of the exhaust breaking. This caused red hot fumes and flames to vent into the cockpit, and melt the surrounding materials. When I eventually stopped to change the rear wheel smoke was clearly visible on the drivers side of the car, but we decided to continue and hoped that continuing to run would extinguish any fires there might be!
We were now not in the race leading position we had been in but were looking at securing yet more points towards our already won championship. Despite having limited visibility and Oxygen due to the fumes inside the cockpit, I was able to continue to the chequered flag and gained us another 2 championship points, mechanical faults being the only thing stopping us from winning our 5th race of the season.

Whilst the second race was a little disappointing, we had still come away from Brands Hatch as unbeatable in the championship points, and therefore ecstatic! Now we had a long wait until the 13th round of the championship, a 2 hour race at Silverstone.

As it turns out I was to get a little practice in around Silverstone in the 24hr Britcar race, piloting an Aston Martin N24 for Beechdean Motorsport. We even had a little support from Aston Martin Racing!

The race was my first 24 hour event, and I was partnering team owner Andrew Howard, Regular Beechdean driver Jamie Smyth and Sports car veteran Neil Cunningham. We had a fantastic run and managed to win class 2, leading an Aston Martin 1-2-3. We had been fortunate to spend the absolute minimum time in the pits during the race, and capitalised on other teams problems, and so in addition to winning class two, we finished second overall. We were very proud of this achievement and couldn’t be happier for team owner Andrew, as he was rewarded for all the hard work he put into the event.



After another long break we retuned to Silverstone for the penultimate round of the British GT championship, this time as the 2008 Champions, so no pressure at all! This race was different to those preceding it, as it was a single, two hour race.

Unfortunately we didn’t test on the Friday so were immediately on the back foot. Then in the morning warm-up on Saturday, the engine failed whilst Jon began the setup work on the car. Due to this we once again had to borrow an engine from Robin Mortimer (thanks Robin) and fit it ASAP. This however ruled us out of qualifying, so whilst we managed to get it fixed, we had to start from the very back of the grid, behind the GT4’s.

The rules state that as soon as the lights go green you are allowed to overtake, regardless of whether you have crossed the start line or not, so I had warned the slower GT4 cars to expect me to come past very early. This however turned out to be the least of my problems. As I was pulling up to our grid slot the Viper engine began to tick over at over 2000rpm, clearly there was a problem. It turned out that a rubber blanking pipe had been sucked into the engine, causing it to take in too much air, hence the extra revs. This meant that the car had what felt like cruise control! Even so we started the race and I managed to make it all the way up to 6th on the first lap, even the television commentators found it hard to believe. I was then able to pick my way past the next few cars right onto the bumper of the lead Viper…maybe a little too close it would seem. I was still struggling with the car, and the pushing-on effect that the engine fault caused was seriously detrimental to the braking system. As I drew close to the lead Viper he unexpectedly braked early into the brooklands corner. It wasn’t much, but I was already struggling to slow down as it was with the rear wheels pushing forwards, and the front brakes slowing me down at a diminished rate. I tried to avoid the car in front and jinked to the left, unfortunately contact was made and whilst the other Viper could continue, a small piece of my bodywork was rubbing on the tyre so I had to pit to remove it. Once removed I exited the pits just in time to avoid being lapped, and with a string of fast laps proceeded to pull away from the race leaders.

Upon the halfway mark of the race it was time to stop for fuel, tyres and a driver change. It was decided by the team to change the blanking hose on the engine to fix the engine fault, but unfortunately whilst Jon sat waiting in the car after a good fuel and tyre stop, a problem arose. When trying to re-fit the bonnet, one of the mechanics hit the fire extinguisher button. Seeing this, the championship scrutineers immediately excluded us from the race. An unfortunate end to what could have been a great finish, despite the earlier problems. In fact only 4 GT3 cars finished the race, so we would have had a good finish if that had not happened!

Disappointment aside we continued on to Donington Park in October for the final round of the season that was again a two hour race. We almost didn’t make it onto the grid for the final race, but due to an amazing person (whom I think would rather remain anonymous, but thank you) and a loyal sponsor at Lloyds TSB Commercial we were able to finish what we started. Testing was good for us despite a few car problems, but qualifying was terrible. It began to drizzle and continued throughout the session, and the car did not feel good at all. In fact myself and Jon had so little confidence in the car that we didn’t complete many laps and ended up a lowly 16th on the grid. A little embarrassing maybe but we shrugged it off, we just reminded ourselves we had already won, and set about curing the problems we had with the car to ensure a good race. Once again I started the race, and quickly moved up to 6th place overall. After only a couple of laps I could feel the brakes were not performing well, and radioed to the pits the information. I then took it easy on the brakes to ensure Jon still had some when he got in the car. We still had some handling problems too, which caused me to have a couple of big moments at the old hairpin, on the lock stops in fact. There was some excitement at the mid distance too with an Aston martin and a Ginetta catching on fire in and next to the pit lane. We had a faultless pitstop and Jon began the final stint of the race, we certainly weren’t going to win, but would pick up yet more championship points. Unfortunately the brakes were completely failing on the car and after a couple of off’s Jon decided to return to the pits to retire the car. Team principle Martin Braybrook was desperate for the car to finish, and so I put back on my race gear and headed back out onto the track….. with no brakes whatsoever. I was lifting off the throttle half way down the straights and using the gears to slow it down. By the last lap I had actually refined this method to such a way that meant I was only 6 seconds off the fastest lap, with NO BRAKES!

That was it, the 2008 British GT Championship was over! Myself and Jon had won!

A full season of racing has been hard to come by for me recently, but with a lot of hard work and dedication I have proven what I am capable of. It has been a year full of ups and downs, but thankfully more of the former. My partnership with Jon has been fantastic and we worked exceptionally together to clinch one of the best championships in British Motorsport.

So far I have collected my award three times. The first was the official SRO awards in the UK, where British GT and British F3 prizes were awarded. I was then fortunate, along with Jon, to be invited to the BRSCC awards evening which was a great night featuring some ‘interesting’ jokes from the presenters (one of whom was Louise Goodman from ITV F1). The third was the SRO World end of season awards evening held at the Hotel De Paris in Monaco. It was a nice surprise to be able to accept an award in the historic Principality, and hopefully I will be able to return soon to collect an award at the FIA awards evening, which was held just one night before ours. In fact as I disembarked my easyjet flight I was able to say hello to some friends who were just leaving. My final awards ceremony for winning the 2008 British GT championship will be in January in Pall Mall, London. It is the MSA Night of Champions, at which all British champions receive their gold flag trophies and this should be another fantastic evening which I am already looking forward to.



I would like to thank all my sponsors this year whom I have listed below, you have all been fantastic and what you have allowed me to do is all I want to do, and thus I cannot thank you enough!

At present we don’t know what 2009 will bring, although we are working hard and hope that I will be able to move onwards and upwards in my motorsport career. There are some very exciting options being negotiated. Until next year, I hope everyone is well, and has a great Christmas and new year.

Best Wishes,


James.

My fantastic sponsors for the 2008 season:

Lloyds TSB Commercial
Lloyds TSB Private Banking
Trimite
Hayden-Media
Sona Hotels
Marshall Dodge
Bond Street Saab
True Budget Accom
Mr Vinyl
Brynn and Alison
Euroclean Spalding
Marcus Horrell Properties
My Parents
My Bank Balance!

And all those individuals that helped me but would wish not to be named.