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AmDTuning.com aims to end on a high at Brands Hatch

Ollie Jackson, AmD Tuning.com

Ollie Jackson, AmD Tuning.com

Pat Cranham

The AmDTuning.com team will aim to end its Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship campaign on a high this weekend when the 2012 season draws to a close at Brands Hatch.

Ollie Jackson, AmD Tuning.com
Ollie Jackson, AmD Tuning.com

Photo by: Pat Cranham

The West Thurrock-based team will make the short trip over the Dartford Crossing to the Kent circuit hoping to pick up more points from the final three races of the year, which are set to be the swansong for the Volkswagen Golf it has campaigned for the past three season.

Attleborough-based driver Ollie Jackson made his BTCC debut at the circuit last season with the Triple Eight team and returns to Brands Hatch this time around with a full year of touring car experience now under his belt.

Recent events have seen Ollie pick up a series of impressive results at the wheel of the turbo-powered Golf, including a brace of top ten finishes in challenging conditions at Rockingham last month.

With the AmDTuning.com team having also made good progress with the car at Silverstone last time out on a circuit layout that didn’t play to the strengths of the VW, Ollie will aim to make the most of the knowledge the team has gained in recent months to end the year on a high.

“I’m really fired up for this weekend,” he said. “Brands Hatch is a circuit that will suit the Golf a lot more than Silverstone did and we learned a lot at both Rockingham and at Silverstone that we will hopefully benefit from when we hit the track. You need a car that handles well and that you have confidence in to go well at Brands Hatch and that’s what we have with the Golf, so hopefully we can have a good run. There is also a chance that it could be wet, and we showed good pace when it was raining at Rockingham.

“Brands Hatch was where I made my debut last year with Triple Eight and I feel I’ve improved a lot since then. I’ve obviously had a lot more time behind the wheel of a touring car and my race craft has improved a lot, which I think has been shown in the second half of the year.

“Hopefully we can go out with a bang this weekend and bring home some good results for the team.”

Brands Hatch will mark the conclusion of what was a three-year programme for AmDTuning.com running the Golf, which it debuted in the BTCC back in 2010.

With the car now up for sale as the team evaluates a switch to a car built to the Next Generation Touring Car regulations for the 2013 season, team boss Shaun Hollamby said he was hopeful that recent progress would be maintained into the season finale as the AmDTuning.com squad aims to end the year with more points on the board.

“We ended the Silverstone weekend having found some good pace in the car and we now aim to hit the ground running when we get to Brands Hatch,” he said. “It’s certainly a circuit that is better suited to the Golf and I’d like to think that we can have three strong races this weekend and hopefully end the year with at least one more top ten finish to our name.

“The aim is to try and show the kind of pace we displayed at Rockingham and with Ollie improving all the time, we’re confident about the weekend ahead.

“It’ll be quite an emotional weekend in a sense as we always said the Golf was a three-year project at the start and that three-year period ends this weekend. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into the car in the past three seasons and I think we’ve shown flashes of what it is capable of in that time.

“We have had some interest in the car from people wanting to run it next year and the announcement of the S2000 award for next year makes it quite a cost-effective and attractive option for someone wanting to enter the series. Our aim is to run an NGTC-spec car next year but who knows – maybe we could end up running the Golf for a customer in 2013 alongside our own programme.”

Source: AmD Tuning.com

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