Hello everyone and welcome to the latest news from ATR.
Or shall we say, welcome everyone to the early than anticipated christmas and celebrations party all rolled into one at the teams head-quarters in Devon, England because it's been an extraordianry week for the team as a whole.
Kicking things off with the TORA ISCC Asia series where ATR DAN and iZ GunDaM clinched first and second in the drivers championship as well as sealing the teams championship at the world famous Le Mans circuit; which has somehow been shipped over from France to it's temporary location in Japan just for this series.
The meeting produced mixed results for the team at Le Mans. Daniel felt he was extremely lucky to claim the victory after Coca-Cola Motorsport's Louis Satterlee was forced to make a third pitstop with only a couple of laps to go after a miscalculation on his pitstops. Ben Chalk produced a steady drive and suffered damage late on in the race but still did enough to claim a well deserved third place; his second podium finish in sucession.
Newcomer to TORA, Zach Casto a.k.a Buckeyebullet20 made his debut for ATR at the final meeting but he suffered a tough introduction with his new team. Zach had no previous experience with the Lola Aston Martin heading into the qualifying session and he started at the rear of the LMP field. The race didn't fair much better as too much damage was caused in the first few laps which forced the young american to retire from the race.
Neverless, it has been a very sucessful campaign from ATR and the team bosses hope they can carry their momentum on into 2012.

Last Sunday saw the final meeting of the GT24 Championship at the classic Silverstone Grand Prix racing circuit. Heading into the event, team boss Daniel wasn't feeling so opimistic about the teams chances of producing a good result, stating that no matter how hard he tried, the Aston Martin Virage wasn't good enough to win the race or finish on the podium. Team mate Matt Hunter was suffering with the cars handling all the way through the meeting. Daniel insisted that the cars performance has improved but it wasn't to the co-owners liking. Conner Johnson wasn't available to travel to England for the race so it was a two car entry for Silverstone. Daniel produced a steady lap to qualify fourth & Matt placed his Aston fifteenth on the grid.
In the race, Daniel managed to produce a result which is much better than he anticipated by finishing on the podium with Matt slipping a few positions to eighteenth after a troublesome race. Despite this however, ATR managed to seal the teams championship ahead of the STORM team.

We managed to gather all the drivers bar Conner and Zach and we managed to grab a few words from them after their triumphant weekend in the ISCC and the GT24's. We are hoping to hear from Conner and Zach as soon as they're available:


Matt Hunter a.k.a jenson09:
"It's been an up and down season but we all know this is purely the test before the main event in January. It's really good to take a title though and all the guys back home will be pleased with that."
"Ive not had the best season to be fair but it's a team effort and between the three of us we've done the job. I'm hapy with that."

Ben Chalk a.k.a iZ GunDaM:
"By god, it was worth it actually arriving! I must it was a little quiet for me, seeing as 2nd was all sowed up. The race itself was kind of quiet for me too. Though I accidentally damaged the rear in the last 7 laps I think, and consistently span out on every one of them (thats what it felt like), I still managed to finish 3rd overall. To my suprise, we ended winning just about every catergory availiable teams-wise! After the standard podiums were all sown up, Zach Castro went up on the podium with us. My god, everyones hype meter bursted when I noted the official theme song to Gurren Lagann blasting on it's stereos! After the song was all said and done, I saw Dan on the mic saying "That was the most hype I've ever seen in the world!" To which, me and Zach said "But then, we are the best in the world!". By god Aston Martin, I love you so much, its embarrasing. All in all then, the best week in the world. Ever."

Daniel Austins a.k.a ATR DAN:
"I'm completely lost for words right now. We have certainly had the most extraordinary run of sucess at the end of 2011, which is something I never would have imagined. But, thats really down to all of the hard work from myself and the team to produce these kind of results for ATR.
I feel absolutely priviledged and fortunate to work with Aston Martin for both the TORA ISCC and GT24 championships and we've triumphed in them both.
I would like to thank my team mates who raced with ATR in the ISCC & GT24's; Ben, Matt, Zach and Conner for their contribution to the team which has helped us clinch these titles.
I would like to congratulate Ben Chalk on his second place in the drivers championship! I'm absolutely delighted for him that he is finally starting to shine for the team and sealing second place only proves what a good driver he is.
I would also like to congratulate my ATR co-founder, Matt Hunter for finally clinching his second teams title in the four years of TORA's existance. I'm really pleased for you mate. You say that you didn't contribute much, but at the end of the day, it's a team effor and every little point counts. So well done mate.
As for myself, it's certainly been an awesome couple of months for me since I lost the Touring Car Title back in October. I feel that I've come back with a vengance. Certainly, claiming the Ferrari 458 challenge drivers, TORA ISCC drivers and teams as well as the GT24 teams championship I hope has proved of what we are capable of.
The first half of 2011 was really miserable but the second half has just been......absolutely brilliant. This has no doubt been the greatest period of racing with The Online Racing Association ever. I feel that my mojo is back and it reminds me of the good old days of TORA back in 2008/2009."