News

12th August 2019

Winning weekend for Sam at Snetterton

Sam Tomlinson (British Karting Champion) from Cambridge and Will Stacey (Youngest UK Lotus Champion) had a very successful weekend at Snetterton for round 6 of the National Dunlop Britcar Endurance Championship, with a third place in race 1 and a win in race 2 in their Ginetta G55 Supercup car.

The day started well as Will qualified on Pole in Class 3 by an incredible 15 seconds. With Will starting race 1, we soon found ourselves not only second in class behind the Porsche 997 but battling amongst the Ferrari and Prototype cars of Class 1 & 2. Sam then took over the second stint and gained and overtook the Porsche into the lead. With 10 minutes to go, his tyres started to go off and the Porsche had managed to regain and overtake Sam and the 3rd place, #77 Ginetta G55 Supercup car too. With a last lap epic battle to the line for all 3 cars the Porsche pipped the number 77 Ginetta to the line, with just over 1 second covering the 3 cars after 1 hour, with Sam and Will eventually finishing in third place. Race 2 started a lot better for Will, as he managed to get a strong lead in his first stint on a damp track to hand Sam a 30 second lead to the Porsche again. With half an hour left Sam maintained and grew the gap to finish the race in first place in class and an amazing outright fourth.

"The team Rob Boston racing has been brilliant all weekend and Will drove incredibly well too so it was just the perfect weekend. I would like to thank all of our sponsors for this weekend that truly made this event happen, RVS Tec, Skip UK, Camclad Steelworks, BRUCE, Headley Tyres and Martin Tomlinson Motorsport Art too."

This wasn't just a normal race for Sam though as the reason behind competing in this race was to raise awareness and as much money as possible for Addenbrooke's Charitable Trust (ACT) as this was a cause close to Sam's heart." Molly our daughter was born at Addenbrooke's on the 28th December and was soon diagnosed with a very rare gene abnormality called CHOPS syndrome, where we were told she was the fourth recorded person in the world to have this. After 2 weeks at Great Ormond Street for a heart operation and 101 days (Race number for the day was #101) in Neonatal Intensive care unit, Molly came home on Oxygen. After 12 days Molly sadly passed away at home surrounded by all of our friends and family". To stay positive and to try and give something back to ACT for all the amazing work and support they offered Sam and his family, Sam, his wife Samantha and their 4½ year old son Alfie decided to set up a JustGiving page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sam-tomlinson5 in aid of a race event later in the year. The current figure with Gift Aid is standing at £16,425.97 which beats the £5,000 they initially set out to achieve. "We have had an amazing response to this, not just from friends and family, but famous Le Mans racing drivers to International reality TV stars and overwhelmingly, people we don't know. It's been incredible and we would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has supported us."

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