Gregory's creativity to fund Mini Challenge drive

For Ashley Gregory, the realities of motor racing are a little bit different than for her contemporaries in the Mini Challenge Trophy.

The Rossendale racer competes in the Challenge, a support series for the British Touring Car Championship, as part of the EXCELR8 Motorsport team.

Yet only three races into the season, she is at risk of missing out on the rest of the campaign.

"Before you've even started you've got to think about entries, you've got to think about how you're even going to get to the track, where you're going to stay when you get there," she told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"And that's before you've even sat in the car, before you've even bolted four new tyres on it - it's before you've put some fuel in it, before you've paid your entry, it's before you've had a little off at turn one and had to repair it.

"There's just so much that goes into it that no one actually realises."

The financial challenges that come with competing in motorsport have overshadowed what should have been an exciting season for Gregory, which started so well before racing began.

"We had an over budget, which is something that not a lot of drivers could say, but unfortunately in the run up to the season we lost a sponsor," she said.

"It's just the way that business works and contracts and things just didn't quite align, which meant that the deal didn't go ahead. And that was the title sponsor, so now I'm having to do it as a round-by-round basis.

"I knew that I had the budget to get to round four, we're now at round four, so I'm now having to launch campaigns, trying to get new commercial partners on board."

Having previously competed for her family-run team, Gregory joined EXCELR8 for the 2026 Mini Challenge Trophy following an impressive debut season, with the aim of becoming the first female driver to win a title in almost 20 years, following Jenny Ryan in 2007.

In 2025, she earned four podium finishes as well as a maiden victory at Donington Park.

In order to continue racing, Gregory - who competes under the number 22 - has had to be creative to find ways to bring in the necessary funds.

"I recently launched a little initiative called Club 22 so people could donate £22, get their name on the roof and be in with a chance of winning tickets for the weekend with VIP hospitality," she explained.

"There's a lot of work that's gone into it and my brain, the cogs are turning permanently through the night trying to think of different ways we can get people involved just to stay on the grid.

"Initially we looked at doing it for the season but we're now purely round by round."

Gregory began the season with a fourth-placed finish at Silverstone in April, yet it currently remains to be seen whether she will be able to see it out.

"I think it's such a difficult game because you tend to find a lot of people that are in motorsport are people who are business owners or people who've got a little bit of spare cash and they want to go racing and that's what you're competing against," she added.

"So the likes of myself and a couple of other drivers on the grid, that totally isn't the case. And it makes it really, really difficult.

"They can afford to throw 20 grand at a testing programme and then a full season budget and if they crash it, it's not a worry, they can afford it whereas in the back of my mind is always the fact that if I crashed, there's a high chance that I'm not going to make the grid again for the rest of the year, let alone the rest of this meeting."