From the Oval to the Workshop

How My Superstox Raised Me

Let me take you back to 2014. The very last World Championship race at Wimbledon Stadium for the Superstox.

Under the floodlights, entering the track through the famous Wimbledon tunnel was always a special feeling. Unique in oval racing - the only motorsport venue of any genre inside the M25. It was dark. I’d qualified well. The car was flying, and so was I.

The parade lap… The safety car pulls off… And 35-odd drivers fight for the same square foot of tarmac at high speed. These purpose-built single-seaters were never anything less than spectacular - and in the capital city, with the crowd pressed tight against the catch fencing, it felt like theatre. Close my eyes, and I can still see the fence posts whistling past my right ear, driving to survive as much as chasing lap times in these highly tuned, unforgiving machines.

For years, I lived for the moment - in the moment - where everything goes quiet just before the green flag falls. Just you, the wheel, and everything you’ve built with your own hands.

I’ve yet to win a major championship in the Superstox. In fact, I sold my car a few years ago. But I’m not done - not even close. There’s unfinished business for me in this sport. And while it’s a privilege to stay involved supporting young talent like Nathan Browning (#201), the feeling of standing on the wrong side of the fence gnaws away at me at every meeting. So I thought it was time to talk through some of what this sport gave me - the lessons I still carry under the skin, every day.

Lessons Learned on Track

Precision under pressure
Oval racing sometimes gets lumped in with banger racing in the public mind - but make no mistake, these cars are built to millimetre tolerances. They’re incredibly sensitive. Races are often won in the workshop, long before tyres ever touch tarmac. The ability to think clearly under pressure, to understand the car’s behaviour and adjust accordingly - even in the heat of the moment - was the difference between winning and practically crying on the journey home. And that precision? It followed me in the workshop to this very day.

Failure teaches as much as success
I still kick myself over missed chances - where preparation wasn’t quite right, and performance suffered as a result. These cars are like racehorses: they demand detail, discipline, and devotion. I learned that success doesn’t come from speed alone - it comes from obsession. I carry that same ethos into my day-to-day work in the workshop at The Vault.

The head game: your mind defines your performance
Superstox racing taught me a lot about who I am - and what I need around me to be my best. I perform at my peak when things are calm, focused, and deliberate. No chaos. Just relentlessness. That’s the kind of environment I try to foster at The Vault; a space where precision, creativity, and care can thrive without white noise.

How It Informs the Workshop

We don’t just ‘fix cars’ at The Vault - we understand them. We build with intent. From optimising engine performance to fine-tuning suspension and braking systems, we listen to what the car needs car as much as we work on it. Balance and feel are as important as tools and torque specs. It’s a skill I’ve honed over decades in classic and performance cars - but racing sharpened it.

Because when you’ve raced, you learn what failure feels like... A broken part at high speed. A brush with the wall. Or, on the flip side, the magic of a car so perfectly balanced that it dances through the corner like it’s alive. You don’t forget those sensations. Racing stripped away the noise. It taught me to stop fighting the car and start listening to it.

Often, what makes a car sing isn’t a big hammer - it’s a micrometer, a set of feeler gauges, and a pair of trained hands that know how to coax life into something mechanical. These machines may be made of steel and oil, but they have personalities. They have flaws. And if you want the best out of them, you have to understand them.

The Finish Line… For Now

So much of what I do now - the care, the craft, the stubborn refusal to let anything leave the workshop unless it’s right - all started out there on the oval. I learned what a machine can become when it’s understood. Maybe that’s still what I’m chasing: that moment of pure harmony, when everything clicks. When a car comes alive in your hands. When the engine sings like it knows it’s been loved.

That’s the goal. That’s the feeling. And if I can give that back - to the cars, the clients, the craft - then maybe that fills the void. Just a little.

For now.

Thinking of bringing your car to life?

Let’s talk. I can promise care, craft, and a workshop that listens just as hard as it works.