In her second exclusive column for Crash.net, the DTM’s leading lady racer Susie Stoddart reflects on a tough first half to the season and her chance meeting with a special secret agent, and looks ahead to turning promise into points over the remainder of the campaign…
Following on from Hockenheim and Oschersleben, the third round of the DTM season at the Eurospeedway Lausitz was really disappointing for me, because had the race run as a normal one I would have finished in fifth place and scored my first series points. The way it worked out with the safety car picking up the wrong leader and so on, though, I ended up going from a potential fifth-place finish to ending up twelfth, two laps down.
That was a complete disaster and a big disappointment for me, but I think everyone realised the whole weekend was a bit messed-up and therefore only half points were awarded. I think the fact they sacked the race director was a clear sign they knew there had been huge mistakes made.
My home event at
Brands Hatch similarly had the potential to be a good weekend, but the team called me into the pits when the pit-lane was closed. That meant I had to make an extra pit-stop, which again ruined my race.
I think racing at Brands in 2006 was more special because it was my first year in the DTM. This year I was just very focussed on having a good race and getting something out of the weekend, and the fact that didn’t happen through no error of my own was very disappointing and left me with a pretty empty feeling for a few days afterwards.
I went back over to Germany after Brands and just breathed a huge sigh of relief that the weekend was over, because there had been a lot of work to do around it. That was really great but at the same time pretty exhausting too. On the Wednesday before the race I had a photo shoot with GQ Magazine and then an interview with Radio 2; it all went well and everyone was really very interested in the DTM and a female driving in the series.
![DTM VIP Party at the Norisring in 2007 (L-R): Hans Werner Aufrecht, Susie Stoddart, Roger Moore and his wife Kristina Taolstrup and Tom Kristensen [pic credit: DTM Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/346803.jpg)
