Rookie Gary reflects on dream debut
YOUNG SPORTSTAR OF THE YEAR
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CLINCHING a race win and the Rookie Cup in his first ever season racing cars made 2009 a dream debut year for Gary Thompson and lifting the Fingal Independent / Clarion Hotel Dublin Airport Young Sportstar of the Year award proved another proud moment for the 17-year-old Donabate lad.
The Leaving Cert student was a hugely popular winner and was clearly chuffed to succeed young boxer Gerard Whitehouse at Saturday night's gala ceremony following his heroics in the Formula BMW Pacific Championship.
When the celebrations died down a little, Gary reflected on a season that saw him shoot to prominence, both in Asia and back home in Ireland.
'We went into the year not knowing quite what to expect; we did a bit of testing but it's never the same.
'We arrived at the first race and all of a sudden I was sitting on pole at the Malaysian Grand Prix.
'My dad owned part of a team that had Formula BMW cars in Asia, so I was meant to race with them, but about a week before the first race the team was sold. It was a real last-minute thing, but I ended up with E-Rain Racing, which is a Korean team, based in Malaysia. 'We went on to win that
first race – my first ever car race – in front of the F1 grid and a huge crowd, it was just amazing.
'We made a great start to the year; we had nine out of nine podiums in the first nine races, but the year started to get away from us a bit at the end. We lost our lead in the championship and it just went a bit downhill.
'Maybe a bit of inexperience came into play because I was up against much more experienced drivers. I made a few rookie mistakes, which looking back annoy me a bit, and I know if the same situations arrive in the future, I won't make those mistakes again.
'The Rookie Cup was probably the best we could have hoped for out of the year. We managed to win our first race too, so that made the year pretty much perfect. When we were at the awards ceremony at the end of the season, BMW offered me a scholarship to race in Europe this year. They are transferring the BMW Pacific over to Europe for the first time, but we decided to go race F3 in Japan.'
In fact, by the time Gary accepted his Young Sportstar of the Year gong, the ink was barely dry on a deal to race in the ultra-competitive Japanese F3 series this season and he's already looking forward to the challenge.
'We just signed a deal yesterday with KCMG. The three big F3 series are the British, European and Japanese. The British and European are looking for crazy budgets to do anything in Europe and the value aspect is just not there.
'Motor racing in Japan is very, very strong and Toyota, Nissan and Honda are very active with young drivers. There are lot of drivers making a good living over there in the likes of Formula Nippon and Super GT. It's a good option to go there because although everyone is trying to get to Formula 1, the budgets make it unrealistic.' He may only be 17 years old, but watch th i s space...
- John SAVAGE
