Aron Smith: Please let this rocky road smooth out soon!

Well it’s safe to say I’ve had a torrid bit of luck as of recently, trying to remember if I’ve broken a mirror in the last few weeks! Between the team, the engineers, the mechanics and I we’ve found a set up which has really helped me to make a big step forward. The car is a mental bit of kit with so many variants that have to align in order to go quick but when it comes right all the hard work pays off.

It’s been a tough couple of meetings where my car has seemed to turn magnetic to other cars, I think touring cars is renowned for a bit of rubbing but the rubbing which I get subjected to comes with the subtly of a gorilla driving a snow plough! Oulton Park was a fine example of this, on race day the pace was really strong and good enough to finish on the podium but yet I didn’t get to finish one of the three races without returning to the pits thanks to the attention of others. Although I even get sick of reading sob stories and everyone is the fastest driver until something goes wrong but I think when anyone has a weekend like that you really do need to focus on the positives because getting down over these types of things will only make it worse.

Then we went onto Croft which was another tough weekend for the whole Redstone racing team. I’ve always loved Croft but that track in a touring car is a whole new level, it’s much quicker than I expected and makes it a lot more interesting! Unfortunately the nature of the track tipped a bit in the favour of the NGTC which made it a difficult weekend. I’ve always found that a solid top 10 in race one, followed by another in race two puts you in good shape for the reverse grid race 3 and this was all going to plan until a suspension failure in race 2 caused a DNF from 7^th. Despite the teams the best efforts this problem carried over to race 3 which caused another DNF.

But simply put, that’s motorsport and without the lows there would be no highs!

Everyone’s focus is on the battle of NGTC vs S2000 which is obviously on my mind. Croft was a bit of a sore point for the S2000 cars which hurt all of the Redstone team but weekends like that can be expected. The tide will change from track to track and while that’s hard to stomach it’s just part of the championship which in my opinion makes it what it is.

There’s a big seven week gap now until Snetterton which is a pain but at least it gives the team a load of time to reprep and get everything spot on for the second half of the season. I’ve always said this is very much a learning year for myself because you wouldn’t believe how big of a step up it has been from the Clio Cup so the gap almost gives me a chance to restart my championship.

Despite all the bad luck I’m still loving every second of this year and every time I get in the car I learn something new. The team are all doing an unbelievable job so I’m dying for my luck to change to thank them for all the hard work they’ve put in. The pairing of Mat Jackson and me is starting to pay off, his experience has really helped me to up my game and it’s still new to me to see myself being on par with someone like him. It’s allowed the team to make some big steps forwards and being a part of that is so rewarding. Watching it on tv doesn’t do it any justice, until your actually trackside you wouldn’t believe how much of a team effort it is.

On a lighter note the gap does let me get over to Italy with Dave Dickenson to watch him in the Italian Clio Cup. Only I would think an appropriate holiday is to go a track and the best part is I get to scrutinise every part of the weekend, it’s mental how you’re always faster from the side lines!

I’m hoping that in one of these blogs I’ll have some good news to report, hopefully the Legendary Irish luck will take care of me for the rest of the season.  If I haven’t already bored you to death you can listen to me on Tin Top Tuesday by following the extremely long link below:

http://soundcloud.com/tintoptuesday/toyota-tin-top-tuesday-series?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=twitter&utm_content=http://soundcloud.com/tintoptuesday/toyota-tin-top-tuesday-series

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