FORGET make-up, clothes and texting girlfriends about the latest boy band hunk, Sarah Moore is more interested in talking about the first corner at Brands Hatch.

“It’s a fast, downhill corner,” she says, a gleam in her eyes. “I got really scared. I thought I was going to go off. But to go around a track like that… it was great. A real buzz.”

The 15-year-old, who raced at the track earlier this year, is no ordinary teenage girl. True, she is petite and slim, with long blonde hair. But she wears racing overalls as if born to them, and put her behind the wheel of a car and she is transformed. There is a whiplash strength about her, not to mention steel and determination.

With just under half the racing season to go, she is 12 points clear at the top of the Ginetta Juniors – a series for 14-17 year-olds which supports the British Touring Car Championship.

With 12 races gone, she already has six podiums and three wins under her belt. At the weekend, she will be taking her fight for the title to Knockhill circuit in Fife, near Edinburgh. And she will also be taking part in a driving demonstration in the Scottish capital on Thursday – driving her Ginetta sports car up Johnstone Terrace right next to the castle, then taking part in autograph signing sessions alongside established Touring Car stars.

“I can’t wait,” she told The Press at the weekend.

At the moment, however, it is a case of practice, practice, practice at the Tockwith motor circuit owned by her dad, Simon.

It’s a former Second World War airfield bought by Simon’s father – Sarah’s grandfather – and turned into a police driving school.

Police, fire and ambulance drivers still train here, but Simon, a former kart racer himself, also saw the potential of opening it up to the public.

Now he and his qualified staff teach up to 100 people a week, many of them children, learning to drive on karts round the twisting Tockwith track.

Simon also runs his own motor racing team – Tockwith Motorsports – in the Ginetta Juniors. And this year Sarah is his star driver.

She is sitting on the long, sculpted bonnet of her Ginetta Junior racing car being photographed by Press snapper Garry Atkinson when I catch up with her.

Brother David, who is 14 and competing in the same championship, is next to her on the bonnet of his own car. They are both clearly buzzing.

The last race, at Snetterton just over a week ago, didn’t quite go to plan. Sarah went into the race one point ahead in the championship, but she was taken off the track by, of all things, a Tockwith Motorsport team-mate.

She managed to recover to finish a gritty fifth – and because of the way results went, ended up extending her lead.

She beams. There aren’t many girls in motor sport, she accepts. “The boys would say they don’t have the balls, that they’re only into shopping and more girly things.” All of which makes beating the boys at their own game even better.

But doesn’t she miss those girly things? She quite likes going shopping, she admits. “But I’d rather be racing around a track.”

Her friends at Knaresborough’s King James School occasionally watch her on TV. But they’re not really interested, Sarah says. “If they have watched it they might say ‘that was really good’. But then they go back to shopping.” So she ends up talking to the boys about it more.

“They think it’s great. Though they don’t really like the fact I’m a girl doing it.”

Sarah and David are following in big footsteps. Elder brother Nigel, who is 17 and has only recently passed his driving test, this year became the youngest British driver ever at the Le Mans 24-hour race.

A Ginetta works driver who is also employed in the Ginetta factory at Leeds building cars, he is the reigning Ginetta G50 champion, and leading this year’s British GT G4 class.

His Le Mans race didn’t quite go to plan. A spectacular engine fire forced him and his driving partners, Lawrence Tomlinson and Richard Dean, to retire just past the halfway stage.

But he is still a hero to Sarah and David.

One day, Sarah says, it would be great if the three of them could compete at Le Mans together.

They might need two cars, though. Because little brother Edward, nine, is already proving to be a mean kart racer, and five-year-old Jemma is learning.

For now, however, there is the small matter of teaching me to do a fast lap around the Tockwith circuit. Sarah slips behind the wheel of a BMW saloon, while I clamber into the driving seat.

The secret to a good lap is to be smooth and in control, she says. You’ve got to get the right gear for the right corner, and put the power on at the right time as you come out. “Do that, and as long as you do it at every corner, you’ll do a good lap.”

She drives me slowly round the circuit once, talking me through how to attack it.

We flick through a chicane, then approach the first right-hander. It’s flat out in second around this bend, she says. “Foot down all the way around, but control the car or you’ll end up in the field.”

We flow smoothly round a succession of corners, then reach the hairpin. “Down to first,” Sarah says, braking hard. “It’s really tight.” Then its flat out again to the last corner and the finish.

That’s the training lap over. Sarah then drives a ‘hot’ lap, the car powering around bends and surging down the straights, brakes juddering as the corners approach. Visions of the car spinning out of control into the fields that line the circuit fill my head. I cling on for dear life, but I should have had more faith. Sarah brings the car to a smooth stop with an amused glint in her eye.

Then it’s my turn to try a hot lap. Not in anything as dull as a BMW, however. David brings a Ginetta Senior sports car on to the track. Like the junior cars, it has a long, sculpted body, but this beast has an 1800 cc engine and can do well over 100mph.

There are no doors, you clamber in through the open cockpit. I do so, and don a helmet, while David slips into the passenger seat beside me.

Tentatively, I buzz the engine. There is a blasting, throaty roar. And I’m off… Well, OK, I don’t think I’m going to be winning the British Touring Car Championship any time soon. But it was fun.

And I can say I’ve driven a fast lap with a lad who might one day be racing at Le Mans. Beat that….

• The Tockwith Motorsport Centre runs driver training courses for the police, fire and ambulance services, but is also open to the public. Children under 14 can train on karts, children over 14 and adults in cars including BMWs but also Ginetta sports cars. To find out more, phone the circuit on 01423 358501.