Having a crisis of faith...

First of all I would like to apologise for my absence from writing for love:mini magazine.
The past couple of months have proved to be extremely challenging for me in terms of the racing.

So what have I been up to you may wonder? Well, I was hoping for a great return to the Scottish Mini Cooper Cup aiming to be just as competitive as I was towards the end of last season which would've seen me become a regular top 5 finisher. Sadly this didn't quite go to plan. After a couple of DNFs, a LOT of bad luck and also driver error on my part, my start to the 2015 season has been rather awful! This certainly hasn't been my year that's for sure but it's been a good test of my resilience and determination. A few moments of weakness left me extremely close to drawing a line under this season and taking a break from the racing until next year, however, the seven long weeks that lay between rounds 2 and 3 of the Mini racing gave me a lot of time to think and reflect (and also a lot of time to miss the excitement that comes with a race weekend!), so I decided to push hard to obtain the budget needed in order to pay off my current damage bills and pay the team to get me back on track.

Things were looking pretty grim up until a couple of days before race weekend. If I had had no success in my search for sponsorship then I would have had no option but to advertise my race car for sale and be forced into an involuntary retirement. Luckily, after a massive plea for help on Facebook I managed to achieve what was needed to allow me to race again. Not only did my plea for help reach over 13,000 people, it also attracted the attention of a couple of BTCC driver's who got in touch to offer their advice and shared my post. The support from everyone has been truly amazing and is a massive part of what makes my racing all the more worthwhile. Having people believe in me is just the best feeling in the world but on the flipside it can also be the worst feeling in the world when I can't repay them with good results!

I remain positive though (I have to!) and believe I can become the dark horse of the Scottish Mini Cooper Cup once more. When I look back to last season, the turning point in my driving and my results were happening around about now so nothing is impossible and I am not defeated yet -nor will I ever be because I am not a quitter! It'll take more than a couple of bad spells to put me off racing so provided I haven't received any more lengthy repair bills between now and round 4 then I will be back to try again in July. Wish me luck!

I would also like to give a massive shout out to my sponsors who continue to support me and have faith in me even when I am not performing to my full potential. It would mean to the world to me to show them again what I am really capable of. An almighty thanks goes to RAM Tubulars Scotland Ltd, The NWH Group, Nexus24 and King Edward Tyres. I really wouldn't be able to do it without them and everyone else who has donated towards my season.

Back in the hot seat
It was a tough weekend at Knockhill. My return to the racing wasn't the successful comeback I was hoping for after my big push for sponsorship to help me continue. I really wanted to hit the ground running and race the wheels off my car like I did last year. Turns out I did quite literally race the wheels off my car but not in the way I'd planned (see picture)!

 Luck and talent definitely weren't on my side this time. I felt as though I didn't really get to knuckle down and test the car properly on Saturday due to it being so stop/start between cars going off/red flagging sessions and having my own car problems with the ABS failing it became a rather disappointing day, however I remained hopeful for raceday and had faith in the team to fix Lola's brake problems overnight.

Unfortunately for qualifying the ABS issue returned (or never actually went away) which put me down in 18th. Thankfully Minimax continued their efforts in getting to the root of the problem and the car was 100% fixed and ready to go for race 1. Sadly I couldn't repay their hard work with a good result finishing only 14th. If I had raced like I know I can race, a sub top 10 finish wouldn't have been unrealistic for race 2, but yet again that didn't go to plan with a 13th place finish.

Although, as much as I'm crying about how rubbish I'm doing, there were drivers out there having a much worse day than me. I am heartbroken for Carol Brown whose BMW engine decided it was game over ending her raceday prematurely and also my new teammate Martin McGeough whose newly bought MINI (ex Max Bear machine) was sadly written off in an unavoidable incident down Duffus similar to how my car was written off in 2013, so I wore one of Martin's Courier Connections Racing t-shirts for the final race of the day - I know it hardly makes up for a written off car but it's the thought that counts!

By race 3 I had finally got my head in a better place and was ready to stop sunday driving the car and start racing it! Sadly it was too little too late. I finished the race in 14th, one lap down from everyone else due to a stop in the pitlane for a wheel change after the original was destroyed in the first lap. 

In a moment of weakness I wasn't going to finish the race but my team told me to shut up and get back out there and I'm so glad I did. Never give up, you never know what is around the corner. 

Now it really is time to show what I am made of before people start thinking this girl isn't to be taken seriously. To have gone from being a top 5 runner with a laptime of 62.8 last season to finishing at the back of the pack at the weekend really is killing me and it's even worse when so many people are asking how I got on. All I want is to say I've done well and had an amazing race weekend but so far that hasn't happened. So now I need to focus, man up and prove that I am worthy of being at the sharp end once more and start being more clever about my racing. Time to get serious. See you all at Round 4. 

Massive thank you to all my sponsors and my team for still believing in me, I promise the old Hannah will be back soon! ‪#‎Minimax‬ ‪#‎RAMtubulars‬ ‪#‎theNWHgroup‬ ‪#‎nexus24‬
Love Hannah.