We were very excited going into rounds 11 &12 of the championship, with a 25 point lead all we had to do was avoid losing 5 points to second place, to be crowned 2008 British GT Champions. Myself and Jon were very keen to wrap up the championship at Brands, to avoid having to wait a whole month until the next round! Even worse, 3 months until the final round! We arrived confident of doing this, knowing our excellent partnership had proven a step above the rest so far.

I had never driven the Grand Prix circuit at Brands Hatch, so the decision was taken to send me out first in Friday testing, to allow me to fully acclimatise myself to the circuit. Thanks to some fantastic hard work by the team, the ABS problems of Thruxton had been rectified, allowing me to use the Viper to its maximum potential.

After a few laps I felt I had done enough to let Jon take hold of the Viper. Jon has raced on the GP track many times before, and so was immediately on the pace, placing us right at the top of the timesheets. By the end of the day, I had learnt the circuit to the point of being extremely quick. Testing had gone exceptionally well, we had no dramas, were quick, and felt very comfortable. This was just the start we wanted to a potentially championship winning weekend.

Saturday is always our busiest day of a race weekend, yet we all seemed surprisingly relaxed. We had a 75 minute test session first thing, but only did about 20 minutes of this. There was no need to wear the car out before qualifying, and the car had excellent pace.

As always, I qualified for race one and had a brand new set of Avon tyres. I ensured I was first out of the pits to give myself plenty of clear track, and very early in the session was able to do a lap of 1:30.718 to put us provisional pole position. This was by far the fastest the car had been round the circuit all weekend. This lap would remain at the top of the table until the last few moments of the session, when it was beaten by just 0.05 of a second by the Shovlin/Cullen Ferrari. I had one last attempt at beating this time, but was unable to do so after catching slower cars on the lap. This was an excellent result as second was our best qualifying position of the year, and gave us a real possibility of putting the championship out of reach by the end of the day.

Another new set of rubber went on the car, and Jon was given the task of qualifying for race two. A fantastic lap of 1:30.463 saw Jon go into 3^rd place. Knowing there wasn’t much left in the car, Jon came back in to the pits which is where the car remained, to see Jon take his best qualifying position of the season also. What a fantastic start to the weekend!

As I had qualified for it, I started the first race of the weekend, which took place late in the afternoon. I lined up second on the grid for the rolling start, surrounded by the usual plethora of Ferraris! As we headed to the start line, the pole sitting Ferrari tried to squeeze me to the edge of the circuit, with his team-mate sticking to his rear bumper. This made for an interesting start, but I knew I needed to keep the car on the road, so slotted into third for a conservative start. It was clear that payback needed to be served to the Ferrari team-mates, and before the end of the first lap I had already made my way into second, past Michael Meadows. I spent a little time behind the number 15 Ferrari of Shovlin to weigh up my passing opportunities, but on lap 4 dived down the inside at paddock hill bend to take the lead. The move was so unexpected by Shovlin, that his team-mate meadows was able to follow me through. For the rest of my stint I was able to control the race, giving the Ferraris behind no chance to pass. Another seamless pit stop by the team saw Jon get his opportunity to play in the Viper.

The race was by no means plain sailing for Jon, due to some blistering in-laps both the number 14 and 15 CRS Ferraris, they were able to exit the pits just in front of him. He dealt with both of these cars quickly to re-take the lead, and set about creating a gap between himself and 2^nd place. The job was made a little easier by the fraught battle for 2^nd place behind, however the final laps saw the car running low on fuel, so Jon used his advantage of over 10 seconds to simply cruise to the finish to take our fourth win of the season! We couldn’t be happier, another win took us to within touching distance of the title in our debut season!

Due to the finishing order of the cars behind in race one, we could now only be beaten to the title by the Christians in Motorsport car of Simonsen and Lester. However, this would involve the number 23 Ferrari winning all three remaining races, and our Trimite Brookspeed Viper scoring no points for the rest of the season! One point is all we needed to seal it. It was obvious that it would take nothing short of a miracle for us to lose this, but whilst myself and Jon were confident we had done enough already, we remained reserved until the end. After all, this is motorsport and ANYTHING can happen!

Sunday came, and we wanted another win. We haven’t scored this well so far by settling for a just a podium position, and we wanted to take the championship in style. In addition to this, the Team Championship was well within our sights, requiring us to beat all of the CRS Ferraris.

Jon took to the track for the start of the race in 3^rd position, immediately taking 2^nd at Paddock Hill bend. The only car that could beat us, driven by Alan Simonsen, was leading the race, and the number 1 RPM Viper was chasing Jon hard in 3^rd place.

Whilst Jon was in pursuit of the number 23 Ferrari, Simonsen appeared to slow, and on lap 15 entered the pits with a problem, resulting in their retirement. This meant that we were now mathematically unbeatable in the championship! 2008 British GT Champions! This was no time to celebrate though, as we were pushing hard for the race win, and Jon was pulling away having inherited the lead of the race. On lap 18, after an excellent stint, Jon pitted to hand the car over to me.

I knew that I had to push hard early on to ensure re-taking the lead after the pit stops had been completed, and similar to Jon’s experience in race one, twice cars exited the pits right in front of me. I was able to pass these quickly to re-take the lead and set about building a lead. Unfortunately, due to a stranded Aston Martin, the safety car was deployed, meaning our lead was reduced to nothing. It was only a couple of laps until the safety car returned to the pits, and I once again pulled away at the head of the field. This is where the drama began!

I could feel I had a problem with the car, and it felt like it could be one of two things. Either I had a puncture, or we were having a reoccurrence of a known problem with the Vipers rear stub axles. I decided to continue to diagnose the problem, and it was decided the rear left wheel had worked loose, just like at Rockingham in testing, earlier in the year. To add to this problem, the exhaust on the left hand side of the car had come loose, resulting in flames and hot gasses being directed straight into the car! I came into the pits, having already lost a handful of places on my in lap, to replace the rear wheel and wheel nut. I rejoined the race in 7^th place, with huge gaps in front and behind me, meaning all I had to do was cruise to the finish. This was not made easy by fact that the 8.3 V10 was still venting exhaust gasses and flames right beneath my feet, causing paint, vinyl, and bodywork to burn. The smoke in the cockpit made it very hard to see, breathe, and concentrate on driving the car. I was a little worried about being overcome by the fumes, but decided to push on to gain at least some points from a disastrous race, which without any problems we were certain to win! Thankfully the fumes died down, allowing me to take the chequered flag in 7^th place, having already won the 2008 Avon Tyres British GT Championship before the race had finished.

When I finally entered the pits, the team were there to pull me out immediately in case the car was to set on fire, but I was greeted by Jon and the team, who were ecstatic having sealed the title with 2 races still to go, and 3 months until the final race! It still hasn’t even sunk in yet that we have won already, but I’m sure it won’t take long!

Having been unable to race for the last few years due to financial woes, it is amazing to not only see a championship through to the end, but also to win it! I’ve only been able to complete two full seasons of racing since 2003, and I have won them both. I can only hope we can keep this momentum going and further progress my motorsport career.

Until then, I have two more races to look forward to this year at Silverstone and Donnington, and we plan to win them both in the mighty Viper, and with a bit of luck maybe seal the team championship too.

I cannot thank my supporters and sponsors enough for their invaluable help this year, and hope you will join me in celebrating at our remaining races of the 2008 season.

Thank you.

James Gornall

‘JIGGY’