Vanchai Golten is the newest addition to our team for the 2011 race season, and is truly a star in the making. Young Vanchai is already 21 years old, but has never before raced cars or go-karts for that matter yet he processes a Natural talent to an extend that very few people have.

Vanchai did a 3 day training course with the Singha Racing School which gave him a lot of good basic race skills and surprised everybody with his speed after only 3 days on the track. Vanchai and his family then decided that they wanted a second opinion about his potential, and a test day with The Pizza Company racing Team was arranged at Bira.

Vanchai was scary fast to the extent that the team felt he was trying to drive over his abilities, and he also as a result of this and being under a bit of pressure and coming straight from University and maybe not eating and drinking enough parallel parked the car nicely into the tire wall coming out of S2 at Bira, but amazingly the damage was very limited and again his natural talent somehow saved him from a bigger crash and he was able to continue the test session.

Vanchai improved steadily and started to listen well to instructions and at the end of the day he had set his personal best lap which was 1.5 seconds faster than before, so a decision was made for him to race 1 season with our race team and use that as a learning year where we could spend the year on teaching him to become a better driver.

A week before the first race of the season we did 1 test day with Vanchai at Kaeng Kracharn Circuit, and again he proved to be very fast setting lap times that would see him in top 6-8 in the up-coming race.

Vanchai spent the practice sessions leading up to the race in learning to brake later and differently, which would come to be a great help for him in the races.

Vanchai surprised everybody by qualifying very fast and putting the car on 3^rd place on the grid, and again by keeping this position at the start into the first few corners, but then the more experienced drivers managed to get past him, and then everybody thought that was it, but again, he surprised everybody by taking up the chase and putting them under pressure at almost every corner. Vanchai was in a safe podium position until the end of the race, where he was spun out but another driver, and damaged the drive shaft and ended the first race with a DNF.

The race was prepared for the second race the following day and he Vanchai showed that he is a superstar in the rough that with some more refining will be the next super fast race driver from Thailand.

Van had a great start and moved into 4^th place from his 5^th place on the grid, and then moved into 3^rd place, then lost a few positions as ge tried to overtake the 2^nd placed driver, and then took up pursuit from 5^th place again, and one by one even the A-class drivers would see them self out braked and passed by this young rookie driver, and driving side by side with the best drivers in the class through the long sweeping corners he quickly put himself in respect.

Vanchai finished his 2^nd race with a 3^rd place overall and a 2^nd place in class so in his first ever race weekend he was on the podium twice, so watch out there is much more to come from this young driver as we get into the season, and he gets some more coaching and experience.

Vanchai’s next race weekend will be at Bira on the 25^th and 26^th of June.