Ashley Soldiers on Despite Being Unwell!

The penultimate round of the MINI Challenge Trophy UK season saw Ashley and her privateer team make the trip to Silverstone, the home of British motorsport, as once again the series featured in the British Touring Car Championship’s support package.

Regretfully, Ashley fell seriously ill on Thursday and was not cleared by the medical team to test or compete on the Saturday. To ensure the car was still getting maximum exposure, Lewis Saunders was hand picked to drive Ashley’s MINI Cooper.

Unfortunately, to add to the issues, the race engine blew up during testing and the team were faced with the challenge of finding a new engine and getting the car race ready for Saturday. Ashley’s mechanics did a terrific job working through the night to get the car back up and running, ready for qualifying. With Ashley still not being cleared to race, Lewis qualified the car in P21, despite difficulties with a driveshaft, and advanced to P17 in the race.

On Sunday, Ashley was well enough to race again and starting from 28th place, she valiantly fought her way up to 17th, despite the torrential rain, navigating her way past her rivals in super tricky conditions whilst keeping her car out of trouble.

In the final race of the weekend, Ashley proved her race two heroics were no fluke. She went even better, moving up from her 25th place starting position to only just miss out on a top 10 finish, taking 11th place and gaining valuable points.

“I’m quite lost for words on how the weekend went! It was such a shame and obviously it wasn’t planned to sit out the Friday and Saturday but Lewis Saunders did a great job for us and I’m grateful to the team for not letting the driver change and the engine failure on Friday get them down.

It was a relief to be able to do some racing and what an amazing two races they were. Yes race 2 was very, very wet and it was a challenge to keep out of trouble but I am very proud of my efforts and again in the final race. To have started so far back and to have missed as much track time as I did, I think there’s a lot I can be proud of from just the Sunday.

The support I received from the Silverstone Medical team, the MINI Challenge UK team, friends family and supporters was that fantastic, it even brought tears to my Dad’s eyes!

I also just want to say how grateful I am for all of the support from my sponsors. It was great to have Joe from McGowan Transcriptions in attendance over the weekend and the spectators in the paddock certainly helped making sitting on the sidelines easier. Always a pleasure signing autographs whilst promoting the excellent web services of Pecometer.

It means so much to us and there’s simply no way we can even go racing without them - so here’s a very special thank you to Salford Van Hire, Pecometer, HMS Haulage, Mintech Spares UK, JB Data Engineering, Umbra Security Group LTD, FUCHS UK, Bowker MINI, North Coat Ltd, The Honda Specialist and McGowan Transcriptions, Gianluca Photography, GymSafe Security, DJB Business Finance, Maybrook Fleet Care, Millennium Supplies LTD, Glass Assist UK, Whiting and Wilson Jewellers, Crossbar Marketing and Toxic Nation”

The final round of the 2024 MINI Challenge Trophy UK season will take place on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit on the 02-03 November and will be live streamed on the BARC YouTube channels.

MINI CHALLENGE Trophy UK Round 2

MINI CHALLENGE Trophy UK Round 2