Epic Racing Set For New Challenge In 2018

Supercup squad Epic Racing have been confirmed as one of the five new squads to be competing in GPVWC's top tier of its Career Ladder, the Superleague, for 2018 thus capping a fantastic rise which saw the squad only re-enter in its current guise in 2015.

Lee, just how big an achievement is it for Epic to be selected for Superleague?

LD: Well in my books this qualifies as a monumental achievement. We started from bare bones back in 2015 and now to see us lining up against such established teams like Nordsjoen, ACR and Wauters is very pleasing indeed. It's a testament to the core members of the team and the amount of hard work they've put in over the past three years, this is a very just reward for it all.

Indeed, you are a rarity in sim-racing in being able to count on a specific pool of driving talent, just how important is that to you?

LD: Well, through past lessons learned, I felt it was absolutely necessary to get the core group of like-minded individuals together and committed to the cause before anything else. Me and Christian (Zoerner, STAX Racing) go way back and he was the obvious candidate to bring Epic back with - thankfully he didn't take much convincing! Then Rob Mason and Geoffrey Fournier came along shortly after, two drivers I really couldn't ask any more of. I'm certain they had received tempting offers from elsewhere but yet they still remain as committed as ever.

How good was 2017?

LD: It's easy to forget that this year was our first in Supercup, our targets were to achieve a respectable position in the standings so to finish in the Top 5 with Geoffrey competing for wins was an unexpected joy. I hope we gave Supercup a fantastic advertisement for some good, close racing.

And what prompted the decision to apply for Superleague?

LD: Well, truth be told I took a semi-sabbatical in the last four months of the 2017 season, letting Rob take the reigns in the meantime. I was gearing up for another year of SC on my return before Geoffrey suggested we had a look at Superleague. We discussed it for a few days and then figured it wouldn't hurt to put a plan to apply together. We green lighted the application thinking perhaps we had a sniff of success but wouldn't be surprised if we ended up staying in SC.

So here we are now, have you started preparations for 2018? How much do you need to adapt to Superleague?

LD: Yes, as soon as we had confirmation our plans shifted onto the Superleague versions. I'm confident we can put together an excellent team for our debut, Rob is moving into a more permanent managerial role within the team after his baptism of fire this year so to speak. Whilst I'm short of confirming our full driver line up, we have one driver signed and sealed and a few options for the second seat, I suppose really that'd the hardest hurdle. Everything behind the scenes is much more materialistic and just requires some time, obviously we aren't going to change into a SL-spec operation overnight, but I'm sure we will look a lot different this time next year!

Different how?

LD: Well, Superleague has a lot of prestige and that's not taken lightly by us. So we want to make sure we are representing the league in the best way possible. That can be achieved through a couple of avenues, as we've seen with various teams up and down the grid. We'll continue to evaluate what is expected of us against what is achievable.

Finally, what would make a successful debut season in Superleague?

LD: Good question! Survival is the bare minimum, if we can shake up the establishment a little bit in the process then bring it on.