With lessons learned from last year, 2015 is shaping up to be brilliant.

So, the time has come: the winter rebuilds are complete; the cars have been painted, stickered, tested and tuned; the series of preference has been chosen and we are only a few days away from the first round.
That round one of the Kent Cams/Simpson Race Exhausts British Autograss Series is at Stroud means we start 2015 at one of the very best venues with one of the sport’s most adept clubs. The UKAC had two excellent rounds there, and our third round meeting was virtually faultless – perhaps the best of the year.
Having spoken to a few Stroud club members, the formula remains unchanged, so that means slick organisation; a sensible and spacious layout; great facilities and an excellent quality track, which provided sensational racing last year in what was their first season back after a few years sabbatical.
The first two rounds last year were a little problematic, the negativity from which was countered by the quality of round three. We then looked forward to the closing two rounds continuing in the same vein, but the effects of Hurricane Bertha cut short the next event in Red Roses, leaving the Yorkshire Dales club to pick up the pieces, end on a high, and create a positive memory through the winter.
Even though they succeeded, the overall feel of the season as a whole was perhaps that it wasn’t as good as it could have been; certainly not as slick as it was hyped to be when the venues were announced in 2013.
As we’ve said before, we are in a new era of Autograss where smaller, more manageable entries create a more relaxed atmosphere, greater fluidity and better value for money, plus greater transparency in identifying punishable racing offences with the camera system.
However, though the theory wasn’t fully evident at the start of last season, we begin 2015 confident that all systems and practices are being used as they were in the latter half, which should make this season one of the best for many years.
There are few better ways to start a season for which we have high hopes than at the Stroud club, with the subsequent events falling to capable organisers.  We were confident that last year was going to be ‘epic’, to quote Becky Shaw, but as issues were rectified and creases ironed out, it seems like this could be the epic year instead.