Biggest news! MOMO UK partnership!

www.momo-uk.co.uk

MOMO, the well known and successful racing brand, has joined with me for 2013, becoming my first official partner in the journey to professional Motorsports. I'm super excited, and have been bursting to share this news since I heard I was chosen last Friday! To be honest actually, I nearly cried with joy at the news.

You will notice I have added a MOMO image to the right of my blog, this is a direct link to MOMO UK's website, click on it and check them out! There's a huge range of product available, seats, steering wheels, wheels, and of course their fantastic range of racing gear. Some more changes to my site will be made through the remainder of this week, nothing major but you will notice them.

MOMO UK is doing some spectacular work this year by supporting a select number of drivers, from grass roots to British GT. There's just one driver (myself) in the Ginetta Challenge, 2 cars in British GT, the 888Optimum Motorsport GT3 BMW of Daniel Brown and Steve Tandy, and the Readgate Consulting/Lifetime Racing GT4 Ginetta G50 entry of Dan Eagling and Matt Smith, Radical SR3 racer Bradley Smith, and grass roots BMW drivers Stuart Voyce and Mike Tovey

I'll be competing throughout the year in brand new MOMO racing suit, boots, and gloves, something I'm eagerly looking forward to! It's going to be Christmas in March when the box of goodies arrives. I will of course be taking pictures as I unpack, and will take a full length for those interested ;-). This is certainly the beginning of something great.

This is a very exciting major step forward in the journey towards professional Motorsport, I'm sure it will lead to great things.

Something tells me this is going to be a spectacular year!

Ginetta Media Day - best day testing in ages!

Ginetta really know how to put on a day! They must have booked the sun months ago, because it ws a beautiful day out, bright skies and warm tarmac. Optimum, as always, handled the day brilliantly, everything ran smoothly, and the car was in peak physical and mechanical condition. All bodes well.

I spent the morning sessions blowing the cobwebs out, and just making sure I was still putting down consistent times, to random "lucky" laps, or any one lap slow one lap fast shenanigans. After the first 20 minutes, it was clear that, yeah, I was still rocking the consistency side of things. That meant I could do nothing but bash the lap times for the rest of the day. Second session, lap times down to a solid base for the afternoon, about 1.5 seconds behind the current pace.

After the lunch break, I jumped back in the beast (named Ripley, I think all my racing cars will carry that name...), and started kicking the times down. 10 out of the 15 or so laps in session 3 were well over a second faster, with the remaining 5 or so about the same as session 2. Fantastic! Current fastest lap after session 3 was under a second off the pace, now that's workable!

Session 4 went amazingly well, lap 3 saw a spin going into Maggotts. An error on my part sent the rear round faster than I could blink. I simply didn't blip the downshift from 3rd into 2nd enough, the rear wheels locked and it just rotated. No worries, threw it into first half way through the spin, got it the rest of the way round, dropped the clutch and continued on for the rest of the lap, and session. Turns out I ran about 5 or 6 seconds slower on that lap... and it had a full 360 in it!

By the end of session 4, and indeed the day, I was sitting a comfortable ~.5 off the pace! The best part being, for 90% of the session, my times were within a few tenths of themselves.

Considering that I haven't touched a track, or car, since October last year, that's brilliant headway for this season. Last year I struggled to put fast laps down outside of a race, and for practice and qually, this meant I was behind the pace by too much to be able to pull the places needed for podiums.

This year though... Well, here's the video of my last two runs, and see why I'm so stoked for the 2013 Ginetta Challenge!



And, for your viewing pleasure, the spin during the last session.

My first press release

Well, this just made my day!

http://www.ginetta.com/news_article?id=1041

It somehow make it all more official, having written up and released to the world by someone else.

The first race is way too far away!

Passion

Well, over the weekend all has been pretty much confirmed for my years drive in the Ginetta GT5 Challenge. Still getting the last little bits finalized, so a full release of details such as team, is coming shortly.

It has been really hard work up to this point, and it's only going to get harder. With 2014 a complete no-go unless I find some sponsorship this year! I relish the challenge though, I am determined to win, and even more determined to continue racing for many years to come.

Racing is a passion many of us share, but few get to experience, and fewer get to get paid to experience. Just the other day it was announced that Timo Glock, a fantastically talented driver, had been dumped from the Marussia F1 team in favor of a driver with less talent, but more money. What if all talent and passion for something had to be followed closely by money? We would have no Xgames, no surfing competitions, frankly, no passion driven sports championships or competitions of any kind.

Well, that's not quite true, we would, but it would be rich against rich, and where's the fun in that? The speed of the sport, and quite possibly, the innovations and passion for the sport would diminish greatly. Who wants to watch a bunch of rich people show off the fact that they can do what they want? The true meaning of sport is to follow a dream no matter the cost, through thick and thin, to overcome fears, comfortzones, and blast down walls and doors that are put in place to stop that dream coming true.

That's why our passion for motorsports should grow, sharing it world wide, and allowing those with talent to compete, over those with money.

I am training myself physically and mentally for the racing season ahead, so that I can do everything in my power to win every race and the championship. Why? Because I love to race. Which brings me on to the fact that I'm spending every waking hour hunting anything remotely related to sponsorship. Talking with the best in the business, cold calling, emailing, calling in favors with friends and family. Passion drives many things in life, relationships, work, care for a pet... in me it drives a want, no a need to improve myself and the world I'm a part of.

My support page, and coming back to blogging!

While I have been away for some time, I will be coming back to regular blog posts about my racing endeavors, and even the adventure it has been... sorry still currently is, to find the money to race.

I may have been away, but I certainly wasn't sitting idle! I have been working hard day, and most nights, trying to get the upcoming racing season off the ground. I have spent a lot of time making powerpoint proposals, sending them off all over the world, and getting zero responses. I have spent even longer making personalized, individual powerpoint proposals designed around one company, only to get zero feedback, not even a "don't bother us any more". This has all been very disheartening, surely money shouldn't stop the pursuit of dreams and passions so violently. Surely a small racing budget can be found somehow.

Forever the optimist, I scoured the web trying to find anything that could help me reach my dream, and race in 2013. Finally, a crowd sourcing website called gofundme turned up, and through it I came up with a very fun way for people to join in. My support page has just been revamped, modernized, and is all new and exciting! My gofundme webpage, http://www.gofundme.com/TorMcIlroyRacing2013 has everything you need to know about me, and my forthcoming year. But, I will share anyway, as I just love talking about racing, and cars.

I will be competing in the Ginetta GT5 Challenge, a extremely exciting, riviting, popular, and busy one-make racing series, based around the Ginetta G40 racing car. One-make means that all the cars in the field are the exact same model, like Nascar but smaller and can turn right. Because all the cars are identical, the drivers make the difference between winning or losing, which makes the racing very close, hot blooded, and nail biting! However, I am struggling to find the money to compete in this fantastic series... It's out of my work budget, and selling the Caterham wont cover the cost either. I have spent the last 2 months feverishly hunting sponsorship, hence my absence from this blog, and haven't managed to stir even a finger in response.

That's why I started the gofundme page, http://www.gofundme.com/TorMcIlroyRacing2013, because I came to the realization that if people stuffed their arm into their sofa, they'd probably pull out £10 worth of coins. If 2000 people did that, and entered into our enormous sponsorship family through gofundme,  half the budget for the racing season would be found. With 7 square meters of coverable space on the G40, there's more than enough space for 5000 people, and that would healthily cover the racing budget for this year.

Space you ask? Why does he need space if people are giving him money? Ah, well, that's where it changes, you get to send a picture of your choice (nothing explicit or rude), that would get placed on the car, for the whole entire season. You would also receive a standard A4 sized professionally printed picture of the car in race trim, and on the track. Autographed as well of course.

That's £10 that would have sat in the sofa for the next decade, going towards helping someone live a dream, while getting yourself something in return.

You see, it's not a one way street, it's not give and take, it's give and give. Also available are many higher levels, including season tickets to race weekends, and track days with tuition.

As I say in my support page, you can also contact me if you want more... more? More means exclusive opportunities and experiences what only racing sponsors can get, the "money-can't-buy" scene that everyone longs to be a part of. 

Feel free to E-mail (sponsorship -at- torminator.com), and we can have a chat about what you can provide, but more importantly, what I can provide you in return.

Too long, but ready for 2013

It's been just a little too long between posts on here. However, there's good news! I am finally set up with the hopes of a funding solution for 2013! http://www.gofundme.com/TorMcIlroyRacing2013 seems to be a great site, and has allowed me to express the great advantages of keeping me on the track next year.

I am 100% certain I'll be moving onwards and upwards to Ginetta G40s in the Ginetta Challenge. Really close racing, and those who read this blog will know I competed in a race at Donington earlier this year. I really look forward to next year, but funding has been a big part of the wait. I am selling the Caterham, although not for as much as I had hopped, I have work panning out, these combine to a good ability to cover most of the year, it's just the rest is the issue. Hence, this fantastic opportunity for you to be a part of racing, and help fund another years racing.

Now, on to that highlights video!