Tom Barley has been enjoying a great start to the 2014 season and he is hoping that it continues as the season moves on.

The young driver who races for Team HARD is looking forward to heading back out on track in the coming few weeks with Snetterton next up for the VW Cup.

Speaking to Kent Sports News about the season to date, Tom said: “2014 has been very good to me so far. A second and a fifth at Rockingham are the obvious highlights so far, that was a great weekend for me and the team.”

The first round of the season didn’t quite go to plan for the team with Kieran Gallagher and Howard Fuller having accidents.

He added: “It’s really tough to see your teammate’s crash. Away from racing we eat and socialise together, so although we all want to win, we are friends too. Oulton Park was a hard weekend for us.

At Rockingham it was undoubtedly the round of the season so far for Tom with two top five finishes to show for an excellent race weekend.

He said: “My podium at Rockingham will go down as one of my best days racing yet. The VW Racing Cup is so competitive with a lot of talented drivers, so when you get up on the podium you’ve really achieved. It was nice to dedicate it to the team and boss Tony Gilham, who’s done so much for me.”

Silverstone also showed that Tom is right on the pace with his VW Golf and he even enjoyed the racing with Team boss Tony Gilham.

“Despite the success ballast in the car from Rockingham I did get back on the pace at Silverstone. Smashing last year’s lap record was a real positive to end the weekend on.

“I really enjoy racing with Tony. He’s not been out in a while but was quickly up to speed. We go over a lot of video and technical stuff, it’s good for us both that he gets out in the car too.”

Tom even got to take part in the American Speedfest at Brands Hatch at the beginning of June and he loved every moment of it.

He said: “The US Speedfest at Brands Hatch is one of the best meetings of the year. It’s a bit of luck it clashes with BTCC otherwise they’d have to start turning people away, it was absolutely packed! The weather was great, and the cars even better. Sadly we had reliability issues, but I had fun all the same. 6.6 litres of unsilenced American V8 muscle is a lot of fun!”

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