SEASON REVIEW – THE BRSCC GAZ SHOCKS MAZDA MX-5 CHAMPIONSHIP 2023

And just like that, another year of racing goes by…

Not exactly the most engaging start to a blog post you’ve ever seen, but it’s late and I’m suffering from race withdrawal symptoms, so cut me some slack.

So, to somewhat sate my appetite for racing stuff – it’s time to do the ol’ race year rundown! Let’s go right back to the start. This year began in the cramped confines of a freezing cold ‘workshop’ (shed) somewhere in Wokingham accompanied by an excitable Australian man, 2 SORN Mazdas, a diesel heater, and an alarming amount of chicken kebabs. Cut to 3 months later, and it’s the eve of the first round of the year at Silverstone GP, and my dad and I are towing ‘Shamu’ to the track following its gearbox exploding approximately 30 minutes prior, during a last-minute test day at Brands Hatch.

Things are going smoothly.

Cut another 24 hours ahead, and my wheel has fallen off, and I’ve crashed into my teammate. Despite all this, however, I had decent pace in the newly built/not quite finished MX5 – and came away with a P4, P5, and P12 (Bonus points for guessing which race the wheel fell off).

If it wasn’t clear already, Tim and I may have ever so slightly misjudged how much time it took to build 2 race cars from scratch.

And while maybe not as obvious as the front left wheel falling off, there was still another glaring issue with my lovely little MX5… It had no power. Now, I don’t know why this wasn’t more obvious at the first round (especially considering it was at Silverstone of all places) – maybe everyone was still a bit rusty from the off-season, or maybe it was because the engine was mainly lacking heavily in bottom end grunt – and Silverstone is more of a ‘top end’ power track, but either way, the lack of “wafft” (as AB Motorsport boss, Sir Ali Bray, would say) was not properly noticed until the next few rounds.

WIP