Hello everyone.
This is a bit different for me to write something like this up instead of doing a team news thread. Its more of a driver/team manager blog more than anything.

The first piece of good news (or bad to 99.9% of you guys here) is that I am here to stay in TORA. Unlike last year, I shall be attending everyone of the race meetings that I have decided to take part in. So hopefully this will be a good year for Austins Motorsport. Last year wasn't totally horrid though thanks to DMR Switch who wrapped up the 2010 GT4 Drivers championship and also 2nd place in the GT1 Class of the 2010 TORA LMS. Unfortunately (partly due to changes in plans), he has decided not to race with us in any of the championships lined up so far. Hense why he is racing with PLOW in the ISCC and WWR in the Winter GT's (I think I got them the right way round). So I wish him sucess for 2011 and hope he can race with us again one day.
But instead because of TORA's ever growing popularity, we have a new driver onboard who is a regular listener and contributor to Radio Le Mans which is very exciting. Adrian Rees (ADx Garage) has decided to join my LMP1 programme for the 2011 ISCC whilst Chaddy has filled up the one and only seat so far in our LMP2 team.

For 2011, Austins Motorsport's main focus is going to be concentrating really hard and well in the 2011 ISCC. The aim is to try and win both the drivers and teams championship. The teams will be harder to win but myself and Adrian are 100% focussed on trying to make this possible. By being able to attend every round and being consistant in all of them, we can do quite well.
The original plan for this series was to enter LMP1 in an Acura ARX-02a. Thanks to the rules, the engine and chassis names could be changed and if we was to use the car, it would have been re-branded as a "Lister-Storm Jaguar". However, my plans had changed when I tried to negotiate with THR owner Matt. I was thinking of joining both teams once again to run the Lola Aston Martin. This fell through. However, my plan to use the car didn't change. Because Matt decided he didn't want to enter in LMP1 with the car, this gave myself a great opportunity. To try and make this beauty into a winner. The main reason was I wanted to continue our relations with Aston Martin after our successes in the LMS and GT4 Championship.

I knew that the Lola Aston wasn't the best car in the LMP1 category and it would struggle against cars like of Peugeot 908, the Acura ARX-02A and the Audi R15. So work began at the end of November 2010. I started with the livery first (obviously). We already had a strong partnership with Gulf oils and what would be more appropriate than to continue the brand with Aston Martin. The real work started at the beginning of December. I started testing and developing the car at Silverstone to try and counter balance the straight line speed advantage with is disadvantage through the corners and under braking. I tried to first work on the cars mechanical grip so that the tune I created would be a good base for the different circuits we would visit during the season. All that we needed to do then was change things like the gear ratio's and the downforce of the car to suit different circuits.
I think after spending a good month on the car, I think the hard work is finally paying off. Because a month later on January 16th, there was a test session being held at the Motegi racing circuit which is the first round of the season. There was myself in the Aston, lfcnicklfc in the Peugeot and Johnnyboy360 in the Acura. Despite my cars disadvantages, my car was about half a second (at the most) slower than lfcnicklfc in a car more superier to mine which I am really pleased with. Obviously, I'm not a big fan of Motegi which doesn't help much either.
Our target for the first round is to finish on the podium. As I say, Motegi isn't one of my favourites so its a case of damage limitation I think rather than anything. Of course, its really hard to tell on paper on what races anyone going to win because its hard to predict. But I reckon the race which we have the best chance of winning is at the Le Mans 2.4 later in the year. My targets are a bit ambitious to be honest because of the fact we aren't in the best LMP1 machine out of all the cars entering in the series. But our target is try and win at least one of the championships. More likely to be drivers rather than the teams but we shall see what happens. Adrian is determined to do really well and I've offered to help him throughout the season.

As for now, myself and Adrian (I think) are going to be entering in tonights ISCC Media day and we shall show our new LMP1 machine to our rivals as well as the press. Its interesting that its been held at Maple Valley which is ideal normally for racing rather than media exposure. But I shall be releasing photo's later from the media day

As for the other TORA championships, I shall be entering the NGTC for a bit of fun really. I don't really race with 4wd cars. My speciality really is with RWD cars so I know I'm quite a way off the pace at the front. But for once, I don't really care.
Also, as far as I know the plans are still going ahead for myself and Matt to enter as a team in the GT1 Championship which I can't wait to happen.

I'm going to finish off now by wishing everyone the best of luck for 2011 and also welcome to our new members from the recently terminated (as far as I know) IFCA. Hopefully this will be a great year for us but we shall see.
Thanks for reading guys and see you soon on the track.
Daniel Austins a.k.a DAN 2605