BTCC Weekend Report - Big Crash...

[Tom@JMS]

The weekend just passed kicked off the BTCC championship, along with their supporting championships.

We have two cars this year, the usual clio x85 cup driven by Jame Colburn (4th place last year) and a new driver Myles Collins in a Ginetta Junior class (saxmax champion last year). More info about the ginettas: http://www.ginetta.com/cars_g40j

Setup took place on Thursday, with practice on the Friday, qualifying/racing on the Sat & Sun.

Some G55's - the Junior G40's bigger brother:

A lot of fuss over this chap:

Anyway, all was well, working through the setups and prepping the cars until 10.30ish when the G40 lined up for the car & drivers first race (brand new car 2 weeks ago) - first corner:



Unfortunately the proverbial sh1t really hit the fan at this point as we have about 4 hours until the cars second race to get it track worthy! Cars entire front end including the engine was severely damaged, front and rear clams destroyed.

15 mins before assembly time - near entire new front end!

Some of the scrap:

Rolled out 1 mine before assembly time:

Ready to race. Slept deeply last night!

 

[Brian172]

i bet it felt good when the car was fixed and ready to race again. Good work mate.
Im looking to go to a couple of rounds of btcc this year.

 

[Goodj]

That crash was mental on the Ginettas.

Mind, all the Formula had that "1st day back at school" feel to it. BTCC boys were just as bad as anyone else.

 

[Englebert]

Excellent work. Out of all the Ginettas, its funny that you're looking after the car that crashed! Presumably the driver was fine then? Was a heavy old impact...

Ace coverage from ITV4 at the weekend, 7 hours of motoring!

 

[maynard]

Love the BTCC sunday's, so much action and it's fast paced too

 

[Sash]

Excellent work. Out of all the Ginettas, its funny that you're looking after the car that crashed! Presumably the driver was fine then? Was a heavy old impact...

Ace coverage from ITV4 at the weekend, 7 hours of motoring!

7 hours that my freeview recorder failed to record for me

Hope the driver was ok! Top notch effort by you and your team to get it repaired and back out on time

 

[TimR26]

Good work getting that ready mate. How did the car get on in the second race?

 

[Revels]

Your cars? But no JMS logos anywhere? :S

 

[Tom@JMS]

Excellent work. Out of all the Ginettas, its funny that you're looking after the car that crashed! Presumably the driver was fine then? Was a heavy old impact...

A bit shaken, but otherwise fine. Bent the steering wheel holding onto it!

Good work getting that ready mate. How did the car get on in the second race?

It ran a second off the pace or so, so not competitive unfortunately. We replaced the steering wheel as the old one had bent so badly it would not complete a LTL, however the replacement was not intended for the car so as a result Myles could not see the RPM counter for gear changes. A sticking throttle cable also didn't help. I think he managed 12th out of 16 or so.

Your cars? But no JMS logos anywhere? :S

Westbourne Motorsport - I work for them - so 'ours' as in the teams.

 

[R1XPH]

Big hit that, nice one on the repair job. Chassis are like brick s**t houses on all Ginettas, one of our F400's was written off on the M1 on its way to Brands :-( Ironicaly it was going to be the safety car!

 

[Matt W]

Big hit that, nice one on the repair job. Chassis are like brick s**t houses on all Ginettas, one of our F400's was written off on the M1 on its way to Brands :-( Ironicaly it was going to be the safety car!

They mentioned that during the race. Made me LOL at the irony.

 

[K1NGY]

That crash.. woh!

Really gutting that

 

[Tom@JMS]

Big hit that, nice one on the repair job. Chassis are like brick s**t houses on all Ginettas, one of our F400's was written off on the M1 on its way to Brands :-( Ironicaly it was going to be the safety car!

Certainly are solid. Unfortunately in this instance the impact pushed the engine support frame along the front cross member back into the belts = big mess.

We were jumping for joy at getting the car finished, six of us - three on body work / clam replacement and three on the engine / front running gear and suspension worked flat out on it. My hands are f*cked after fighting all of the shattered wishbones etc.

 

[foRSter.]

haha I've just watched the clio race about 2minutes ago awesome stuff

 

[Rob]

What is it you do now then Tom?

I must confess I was a little confused when you said "ours".

Looks good fun, whatever it is.

 

[Tom@JMS]

I still own and run JMS, but I also work for Westbourne Motorsport maintaining and servicing / prepping and repairing the cars both at base and at the testing / race events throughout the year. This entails everything from washing wheels, to on-the-fly repair work as above.

We see the cars as 'ours' as it's from the perspective of being a team member - make sense?

 

[Ash87]

top work on the repair, looked a big impact

 

[Rob]

Indeed it does, it made sense when the you answered Dan, but I was just curious as to what exactly you were doing there

 

[Tom@JMS]

Head tea boy.


Well for example in the above my job was to remove and refit all of the damaged steering & suspension assembly on both the near and offside. So that consists of the parallel same length wishbones, rack & mounts, dampers, chassis lugs etc etc. (These had to be remade from sheet material as the old lugs were ripped off.) Meanwhile above two guys worked on getting the jammed in engine sorted and running again.

The main problem is that twisted and bent parts don't come off in the same way as normal ones.

 

[Fred@BTM]

^man up and use a hammer!

and i thought you were the computer geek designer/furnitue bod, didn't know you h'actually knew how to operate a spanner :rasp:

 

[Alex H]

Good work on getting that car back out, looked fooked!

 

[Ollie82.]

It ran a second off the pace or so, so not competitive unfortunately. .

Head tea boy.

Well for example in the above my job was to remove and refit all of the damaged steering & suspension

I think one obviously led to the other.....

 

[Ali]

Title confused me too!

Good work, motorsport is a mugs game now a days! - May aswell build a bonfire with £50 notes...........................god it miss it!

 

[Tom@JMS]

Indeed. The ginetta parts boys were rubbing their hands together!

 

[philmots]

The F400 that crashed on the way down was a full on mess too.. They have a road going one of those Junior Ginettas that I see 'testing' quite often, and a lovely white (i don't know if it's a F400? the olf Farbio car)

 

[Addicted]

pretty bad crash! i imagine your team would be pretty p*ssed off that it didn't seem to be your fault as well? but then i guess that's part of the racing!