Driver name: Hunter Abbott
Team: Blaupunkt Team Spirit of Adventure
2007 Results:
Best Finish: 1st
Championship Position: 2nd
Likes & Dislikes:
Food? - Lebanese, a bit random but I have done quite a bit of racing out in Dubai and the cuisine is fantastic!
Band & Album? - I’m listening to Kanye West and Snow Patrol at the moment.
Football team? - Reading
Actor/Actress? - Actresses don’t exist now in our PC world do they? Will Ferrell
Film? - Joe Dirt
TV Programme? - Lost
Book? - Perry McCarthy, Flat Out Flat Broke and The Sun Tzu
Car? - Gumpert Apollo
Driver? - Ayrton Senna, predictably…
Holiday destination? - Thailand
Questions:
2nd favourite race circuit (after Rockingham of course!)? Pau, France. It’s a street circuit in the south of France, near Lourdes. It’s closest thing to Monaco you’ll ever see. Legendary.
What was your first road car? - 1976 Mini 996cc
What’s your occupation? - Managing Director of Now Group UK Ltd
How did you get started in motorsport? - Through indoor karting, then outdoor karting
First thoughts leaving the pit lane for the first time in a stock car? - There’s a lot of travel on the gear lever.
How does your driving style change for the oval? - I’ve raced sports prototypes and GT cars and the styles are very different. You have to respect the oval cars much more and drive them much more smoothly – chuck it around and you’ll be in the wall.
Why do you race with number 26? - When I joined the championship in 2005 I was racing for Torquespeed and they ran 26, 27, 28 and 66 and 26 was the number that I was given.
Best Moment of the season? - My first SCSA victory at rounds 5/6
Worst Moment of the season? - Getting the setup wrong at the last race and losing the championship. Oh, and completely messing up the post race donuts at the same event!
A brief season review (and sponsor plug!!!) - The season has been great for me. I did a last minute deal to join CWS and come back to SCSA after a year out racing a Porsche in the British GT championship. Blaupunkt kindly supported me for the first couple of races to get the season rolling and I was over the moon that I took a pair of second place finishes on my return to the series. The next few meetings flew by with a couple of wins and the deciding point of the championship was when we tried to save budget at the second to last round by using old tyres. We ended up chasing the setup on the car as it was completely unbalanced which made us take a big step back from where we were. This carried over to the last round and I just couldn’t get the car back to handling as well as it did two rounds previously which ultimately cost me the championship through a false economy - lesson learnt! I really enjoyed 2007 year and CWS made me feel right at home. One of my newer sponsors, Onkyo, has also had a great time and hopefully we’ll see them stay with me for next season too.
Hunter Abbot, image Copyright© 2007 W. Maruszewska / Post 14
