Hi my name is Seán Doyle and this is my first blog for
MicksGarage so I better tell you a little bit about myself. I'm 21 years of age from Wicklow Town where I live with my parents Vincent and
Helena and our three dogs, two golden Labradors Bracken, Shiriam and a Germany Shepherd Sam. My family are my biggest supporters and come to all of my races. I'm a brand ambassador for
Nissan Ireland as part of their
Nissan 'Generation Next' programme and I drive a shiny black 142 Nissan Juke for them.
The life of an up and coming racing driver is not always as glamorous or exciting as you might imagine. I have to constantly work hard to find sponsorship to continue racing while also working to earn a living. I don't drink or smoke and all my money from work goes straight back into racing. My ultimate goal is to become a professional GT Racer following in the footsteps of Irish drivers Matt Griffin and Damien Faulkner who race professionally all around the world in GT Endurance racing.
When not racing or testing I work in
Mondello Park as an instructor in their
Porsche Supercar Experience,
Race Experience, Early Drive, which is a road safety course for Transition Year students, and the Advance Car Control course.
To earn a living sometimes you have to be willing to do anything so I'm quite happy to get stuck in with the Mondello Park maintenance crew when required. Last week in preparation for the new season I was busy painting the Armco barriers, kerbs, grid markings, and the white line around the track, it's not as easy as you think to do a straight line! Having previously raced mainly in single seaters, this season I was approached by Alan Kessie, owner of
ASK Racing, to race in his new 'ASK Supercar Championship'.
The cars previously raced in the RT2000 championship, which was very popular in the mid 2000's. Alan has being planning this for over a year now, going around the country buying up cars and organising a new tyre manufacturer for the class, Hoosier Tyres from the US. It's a great opportunity for me, to be racing with ASK Racing and to be driving such an iconic car. We have just finished the first two rounds of the championship in Mondello Park where I qualified on pole position and took two wins from two races, that was a great feeling, walking away with two wins and full championship points. It was great to be back in a saloon car and it all started to come back to me very quick as I previously raced in Junior Rallycross in a Nissan Micra and in Ginetta Juniors.
For qualifying you have to set two lap times to determine your grid position for race one and race two. I did two fast laps to put me on pole position for both races just before a red flag was put out for stricken cars, I called it quits at that stage and returened to the pits, happy with my result!
I was looking forward to getting out and in a race as it had been a long time since the last one in 2014. I got a the initial jump but then bogged down and Peter Barrable took the lead but thankfully the race was stopped for the car stuck at turn one. On the restart I got off the line much more quickly and took the lead, I had Barrable, and Bob Cameron on my tail both waiting to jump at my first mistake, I built a bit of a gap to the two behind but started to get brake fade (Started to loose braking) and the only way to bring them back was to pump the pedal a few times before braking hard once again for the corner. I held on to take the win.
Race two was much the same, I got a much better start than my first one in race one and got the head down to produce a few clean laps and make a break from the guys behind, about mid way through the race the brake fade came back and I was pumping the pedal for the last few laps to nurse the car home in first place. It's great to have such good results for my first race of the year and the team were delighted as well, I couldn't have done it without them!
As I said earlier, I work on track maintenance in Mondello Park and the highs of Sunday didn't last long as I had to get up on Monday and go back to the track but this time it was to help cleaning the place up, emptying all the bins from the weekend and getting the circuit ready for the week ahead.
Over the course of the season I'll use my blog to keep you posted on how I'm getting on with my racing, as well as offering some insights into what's involved. I'll talk you through the in-car video footage of a pole winning qualifying lap, corner by corner to explain racing lines, braking etc. I'll also show you what a racer needs to do to prepare mentally and physically, including a look at my training regime. On the technical side I'll look at basic car set-up, how to identify what your car is doing on track and what you can do to fix understeer, oversteer and other common problems.
I'd like to thank MicksGarage for approahcing me to write this blog and many more to come,
you can keep up to date with my season on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/seandoyleracing
Sean
Photo credit:
Jaytee photographic &
brianwalshphotos.com
