Pre-season for The TORA Touring Car Championship is all but complete with media day all wrapped up and Round 1 racing towards us. It all started with initial testing of a couple of different cars built to TCC spec with the Renaultsport Megane 250 winning me over with its natural handling prowess even on a very simplistic set up.



Next came amazing news with Nankang Tyre UK agreeing to come on board as a sponsor! The new livery was applied to the car and as soon as I got the green light from Nankang UK (and once I'd taken some time to tell my family and my girlfriend) the car was revealed for the first time in the official launch which you can read here: http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t11321-launch-nankang-uk-and-slider-s15



With real world sponsorship locked down thanks to the guys at Nankang UK it was time to dial in the car before media day to put on a show for the cameras. Over the course of several days the car was meticulously lapped and lapped around the Silverstone National Circuit, trying out different set up tweaks.



Once a strong base set up was found  it was time to try and improve myself as a driver thanks to BG Chucky 82 who helped me to find a new clutch set up on the controller allowing me to run with the clutch for the first time. After a lot of practice the times started to tumble further and confidence grew ahead of media day itself. A couple more tweaks and the car was ready for action in front of the cameras.



Media day came and I had a lot of fun in the Nankang UK Megane finally mixing with the other cars in the series and putting on a show for the media and my fellow competitors. Although I felt my race-craft was as sharp as ever it soon became apparent that I'd taken a wrong turn in the suspension geometry with the Megane loosing pace to the other cars in the faster corners.



After the official Media day was over I continued testing with the guys from MadNotMad Racing and started to work out some of the bugs with the car, improving the set up and feeling more and more confident and competitive with the way the car was behaving compared to the start of the night.



Media day was tough on both me and the car with lots learned and lots improved. The Nankang UK Megane also suffered 20,852cr worth of damage during the event. To put that in perspective I only did 8,839cr worth of damage during the entire season of the TORA Clio Cup which, even considering a heavy crash at Sunset Infield reverse with VAMR Wilson, just goes to show how rough and tumble the TCC can be even before the season starts!



Since then I've been working even more on the car with the suspension set up completely reworked since media day and the car now faster and easier to drive than it ever has been. Although still not “prefect” for what I want from it it's definitely miles better than at media day and it's now a weapon I can really fight forward with. With still a few days before Round 1 I'm hoping to dial in that last 1% and show what I can really do!



In the mean time please take the time to support my sponsors by visiting their Facebook page and giving them a “like”: www.facebook.com/Nankang-UK and Visiting their website at: www.nankangtyre.co.uk

You can follow me at: www.facebook.com/SlidersStorefront and clicking “like” or by searching for #SliderS15 on Facebook.