Damani Marcano

MEDIA INFORMATION

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Teenage racing protégé, Damani Marcano, overtakes adults at Brands Hatch

- Damani signed to race in the VW Racing Cup with Team HARD -

16 year old racing protégé Damani Marcano completed his first day of testing at Brands Hatch, driving a Volkswagen Racing Cup specification VW Golf GTiR with Team HARD.  During a general track day at Brands Hatch on 1st February 2015 Damani put his new 150mph car through its paces for the first time. Starting the day slowly, Damani surprised everyone with his rate of development, overtaking many adults in high performance road and race cars by the end of the day.

Damani is not old enough to drive on roads but was able to participate in the track day as he recently passed his racing license test aged only 15.  This was the first time the car had been driven by anyone and it was Damani’s first experience of slick racing tyres.

The cold, damp conditions were less than ideal and made driving on the track quite treacherous. As a result, the day saw several stoppages due to numerous far more experienced drivers sliding off the track. Despite his lack of experience, Damani kept the car on the track all day delivering a very mature approach to building up his pace.

While Damani drove solo in the afternoon, he was guided through the morning by Wil Arif, an ARDS qualified racing instructor with 30 years of experience in racing.

Wil Arif, MSV Racing Instructor remarked:  “Damani’s enthusiasm to learn and willingness to listen was refreshing. Considering that he has just come from karting, I found that he had a good feel for the damp conditions around Brands, which is difficult at the best of times. For a first timer in a car and around the track I was impressed with Damani’s driving and implementing of the instruction given. After Damani was under my instruction in the morning, I got a chance to watch him in the afternoon and was very impressed by how well he coped, driving on his own. I’ll be keeping an eye out for Damani in the future.“

Not only was this Damani’s first time in this car, he has only driven a couple of cars on track before. On these few occasions he had behind the wheel prior to this day, there were few cars anywhere in sight and Damani always had an instructor next to him. This time, Damani had to cope on his own with high speeds, slippery conditions while negotiating corners with multiple cars around him.

Former BTCC and VW Racing Cup driver Tom Barley commented:  “Watching Damani’s first day, I have to say he made a VERY impressive start. Quite incredible actually all things considered. At 16 I had no idea I was going to be a racer, and look at Damani. Forging his career.”

This is the first of several test-days in the build up to Damani’s first race event on the 4th – 6th April  at Oulten Park.

Damani commented: “I started the day very slowly and built up my pace gradually because the track conditions were so tricky. I feel very positive about the constant progress I made all day. When it was time for me to drive on my own I was really nervous but suddenly had a burst of confidence once I started driving. I went faster and faster in each session. I really didn’t expect to be overtaking anyone on my first day let alone such fast cars. Even though the day ended with me going home to finish my homework, this was one of the best days of my life.“

Watch Damani overtaking several drivers from his on-board camera here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7QI9_bUkFg

This 30 second video highlights some key moments in Damani’s journey last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKAZcbauDFs

Watch Damani’s karting story, “A Drive to Drive”, on YouTube; a video previously used to support his racing career crowd-funding campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ8ALt9AyMI

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Editor’s Notes

For further information please contact Pippa Gibb on 07970 441 046 or email press@damanimarcano.com

Visit the Media Information page for additional background and resources, including more high-resolution images.

Damani will pilot a fully race prepared VW Golf GTI R Cup Car in the Volkswagen Racing Cup alongside regular proven and experienced racing drivers. Racing in the VW Cup will be Damani’s first step on a multi-year programme to eventually race in the British Touring Car Championships (BTCC). Damani’s plan is to jump in at the deep end and race a full season to learn the tracks and gain experience of racing cars. Holding no specific expectations of this year, his focus is just to learn as much as possible on the track.

VW Golf GTiR Cup Car: a 250 bhp race-prepared hatch-back capable of speeds of up to 150mph. These cars are based on a road car but stripped of all parts, not essential to racing, and fitted with a safety roll-cage meeting safety regulations of the VW Racing Cup. Additional differences are adjustable racing suspension and racing tyres that increase the amount of grip, and therefore cornering speeds, that the car is then capable of.

“Testing” is when a driver test-drives a car for both practice and to identify changes to make to the set-up of the car to get the maximum performance from it. It is also an opportunity for a driver to learn what effect adjustments to the car have.  A driver spends as much time as possible trying different adjustments to things like suspension and gears to find the best set-up for their personal driving style, the track and for varying weather conditions where possible.

Team HARD Racing is a racing team with drivers in multiple racing series, including the British Touring Car Championships & the VW Racing Cup. Team owner, Tony Gilham, is a racing driver himself with years of experience in sports and touring cars.

For more background on Damani, please see: www.damanimarcano.com

You can follow Damani’s journey

On Twitter: @DKMRacing

On Facebook www.facebook.com/DKMRacing

On YouTube www.youtube.com/DKMRacingTV

2015, Brands Hatch, Team-HARD, VW Racing Cup

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