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A View From The Driver's Seat: Croft was tough but we came through much stronger for it!

By Aiden Moffat / MJP Media | 15 July 2014

Aiden Moffat looks back at a difficult meeting at Croft in North Yorkshire and looks forward to the second half of the 2014 BTCC season.

We headed to Croft with a little trepidation as this is a circuit I did not know well and the team had not done any major testing there either, so we had our work cut out. We were very hopeful though as we had a new weapon in our armoury in the shape of a new Swindon engine that we will be running for the rest of the season and I was keen to get to grips with it.

Things didn't go quite to plan and I don't think that there is a great deal of sense in dwelling on it. Let's just say that we suffered a few purely mechanical issues which we weren't expecting and these various problems affected us throughout the weekend. It was disappointing for me as I believe that the car can be stronger and I really believe I can get more from it and be further up the grid. But as we know, every problem gives us more data and makes the team stronger as we build up our knowledge of what we can and can't do. In a nutshell, Croft was a bit of a setback, but we will improve.

Looking ahead to Snetterton we have a lot going in our favour. We learnt a lot about the engine and the Swindon Engines team have been a massive help. The circuit suits the engine's characteristics and we think that we can harness this to our benefit over the weekend. We also discovered a couple of areas where we can do things differently which we think will strengthen our proposition on the grid.

Since Croft, we have had some great input from a few carefully chosen experts in their field and there will be some setup changes to the car which we are keeping under wraps so that we can evaluate them properly next time out. We have also looked at how we managed certain areas of the cars preparation and believe we have found some areas that will make us stronger too.

If there was one thing at Croft that will live with me for a long time, it was the massive support I received from the fans over the whole weekend, including one family who came to see me on the Sunday morning and then took the time to e-mail me on the Monday to say how much they had enjoyed meeting me and how their children had been cheering for me all day. That was fantastic and I wish I could have given them and you even more to shout about.

I am aiming to put this right at Snetterton and I will be doing my best to reward you, my loyal fans, with something serious to cheer about. Let's hope it works and I look forward to seeing you all in a couple of weeks' time.

Aiden #16

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