It’s been an eventful few weeks out here in North America.

After a successful race at Mosport Canada – closing the points gap on the current Star Mazda championship leader Peter Dempsey – we travelled down to Road Atlanta where we were joined by the rest of the team. Arriving here was JDC Motorsport’s newest team member and my team mate for the rest of the season, Chris Miller, who has joined us after competing in Formula 2000 earlier in the year.

The test went really well. It only took a few laps to work out the track basics, but figuring out the blind corners was the trickiest part. It was a hot day, and it didn’t feel like there was much grip. Improvement throughout the day was steady. I was fastest with a small margin – a good end to the day – and we left the track knowing we should have good pace for the next event.

After testing I managed to get a bit of time to go back home to Birmingham, England. I was only there for a week but it’s always good to get some time there. I saw my family and meet up with a few friends during the weekend. Training continued as normal, but I did manage to make it to the Grand Prix Shootout on the Tuesday at Bruntingthorpe Airfield.

The event was attended by six international drivers. Three drivers went and did their evaluations in the morning and I was one of the three doing mine in the afternoon. I managed to meet with Peter Windsor, the man in charge of the New F1 team, USF1, then during my evaluation I was let loose in a Fiat 500 Abarth Spec. The little car performs like a missile, and punched out a good 130bhp from its turbo charged engine (though unfortunately it didn’t quite handle like my Formula Star Mazda!). Still, it was fun to see how far you could push it.

My evaluation was done by Rob Wilson. It was quite strange having some one sitting next to me, marking me. It felt like I was having my driving test all over again, except this time I didn’t have to stick to speed limits! It was definitely enjoyable, but different to what I’m used to. Firstly I was driving a front wheel drive car, secondly the race car had a roof, and last but not least, it’s unusual for me to be sat so high up whilst driving.

The evaluation went well. I didn’t have any ‘offs’ or detours, and I got on really well with all the guys at The Shootout. I must thank David Fleming for organising the event and being patient with my travel arrangements to and from America!

I spent the rest of time at home working until Thursday when I got back on a plane – this time to Indianapolis. This is where the majority of the Indy Car teams and Indy Lights teams are based. I travelled to the Vision Motorsports workshop where I got to meet all of the crew and had a seat fitting. Their workshop is unbelievable. The building is huge, they have at least 10 car bays for the Indy lights, Indy Cars and some of the older models too. They also had the two trucks in there as well as their own paint booth, machine shop and everything else a Indy car team needs to be successful.

Later that day I took a trip to California to meet my current team JDC Motorsports for another test at Laguna Seca – and the track didn’t disappoint at all. In truth, it was awesome!

I’d never been before, but I’ve played on Grand Turismo enough to feel like I know it well. Still, that doesn’t make it easy. I only had one test session before I was heading into qualifying, quickly followed by the race. The main aim for the weekend was to learn the track and get a good setup for the final round of the championship, and thankfully the day went really well. I won both my races, but unfortunately these aren’t point scoring events, however I’m planning on taking my success and repeating my finishing positions in the final round.

Monday morning wasn’t a time to relax; I was on another fling back across America to mid-Ohio. Here I was testing in an Indy Lights car; a 450hp beast of a machine, almost double the horse power of the Star Mazda and with a great deal more downforce. Here I worked with Bryan Herta (ex-Indy car race winner and Indy Lights champion) and Steve Newey the engineer of vision Bryan Herta motorsport.

The test was a good experience. It was another steep learning curve as I had to learn the track as well as the car. I was reaching nearly 160mph at the end of the back straight, but the downforce helps to slow the car down beautifully for the corners. I ran wide a few times but managed to keep the car off the grass, running respectable times and the Vision Bryan Herta crew were impressed with my improvement throughout the day. I ended up just over half a second off the fastest time, completing the 3rd fastest time of the day. I would like to think that if I spent another day in the car I would be right on the pace.

The next few days I spent my time in Indianapolis training and preparing for the next round at Road Atlanta. During my few days there I spent much time at Pit Fit where many of the drivers go to train with sports and race car enthusiast Jim Leo, drivers such as Dario Franchitti (Indy car), Scott Dixon (Indy Car), Townsend Bell (Indy car) and some of my Star Mazda rivals. On the Sunday I also made my way to the HQ of racefanradio.com where I conducted an interview with two of my closest championship rivals – talking about racing in America, next weekend’s race and our individual plans for next year.

Over the weekend I also met up with a few of the Indy Lights drivers to watch the Japan Indy 300, just before I had to pack my bags once more and get ready to head off for this weekends round 12 of the Star Mazda championship race at Road Atlanta.

It’s back to the race, and I’m really looking forward to an excellent weekend on the track.