Britcar Silverstone 24Hr Race - 1st/2nd October

Britcar Silverstone 24Hr Race - 1st/2nd October

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Discussion

macgtech

Original Poster:

997 posts

165 months

Monday 12th September 2011
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Hi all,

As some on here know, we have been competing in the Britcar British Endurance Championship this year in our self-built and developed bright yellow Ultima GTR. We had previously never intended to enter the 24hr race as it is a huge undertaking both financially and in terms of time, however, the organisers have encouraged us to enter the race due to the impressive pace that we have shown so far this year, running competitively against full professional teams with huge budgets. For better or for worse, we succumbed to the pressure and we have entered the event!

Alongside myself, we have Adam Wilcox and Jamie Smyth driving, who are both former British GT Champions, so we have a formidable driver line-up so far. That, coupled with a car that has proven to be very fast on the Silverstone arena GP circuit (we took 2nd fastest lap of the race on 3hr old tyres last time out), we should be in with a very good shout of outright victory.



As a 'regular' on here (less regular in the last 12 months as the racing has taken over life!), I wanted to drum up some support for our cause within the Ultima fraternity (home and abroad!).

The event really is a great one - there is plenty 'going on' all weekend, and there is 'unlimited' access to all the garages, teams, drivers etc. - the only part where access is restricted is in the pitlane itself during the race - for obvious reasons!

We are also supporting a Leicester charity, LOROS, who offer hospice care for the sick and terminally ill round Leicestershire. We have the logo on the car and on all the teamwear, to try to raise awareness for all the great work they do.



If anyone is at the event, please come by and say hello - it would be good to meet as many people as possible. We are also looking for sponsors for the event from businesses - we can offer excellent exposure and have plenty of options available, so if any business owners etc are interested in sponsoring us for the event please do get in touch!

You can find out more information about the event at the Britcar website here: http://britcar24hr.c....php?content.53

And more information on our team here: http://www.macgracing.co.uk/home.shtml

There is alot of exotic machinery entered this year, from the 'usual' 430 GT2's to Moslers, Astons, Lotus's (including an Evora), Porsches, and a Mercedes SLS - tasty! There is also a rather interesting looking Audi A8 W12 if that kind of thing does it for you!

Hope to see some of you guys there.

Jonny

macgtech

Original Poster:

997 posts

165 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
quotequote all
We would just like to say a huge thank-you to the Ultima Factory who have agreed to provide us Factory Support for any spares etc that we may require throughout the event. This is an enormous help to us and should give us 'one over' the opposition from a reliability and support perspective.

Little over a week to go now!

Jonny

LuckyP

6,243 posts

231 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
quotequote all
macgtech said:
We would just like to say a huge thank-you to the Ultima Factory who have agreed to provide us Factory Support for any spares etc that we may require throughout the event. This is an enormous help to us and should give us 'one over' the opposition from a reliability and support perspective.

Little over a week to go now!

Jonny
That sounds cool.....





...what does it mean?

qwick

530 posts

273 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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Good luck Jonathan, sorry I can't make it to this one but I'm up for the next for sure.

The car looks great and I'm delighted for you that the factory are helping out too, good on them.

Fingers crossed!

deadscoob

2,263 posts

266 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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Cool good luck to you and the team smile

macgtech

Original Poster:

997 posts

165 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
quotequote all
LuckyP said:
That sounds cool.....





...what does it mean?
The factory are bringing us a huge number of spares so if we have parts fail or need replacing, we have new parts ready to swap in - obviously this is a massive benefit to us.

The last part means that the event starts in around 9 days time :-p

LuckyP

6,243 posts

231 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
quotequote all
macgtech said:
LuckyP said:
That sounds cool.....





...what does it mean?
The factory are bringing us a huge number of spares so if we have parts fail or need replacing, we have new parts ready to swap in - obviously this is a massive benefit to us.

The last part means that the event starts in around 9 days time :-p
Can't wait Jonny. Tickets wangled and pass out granted. Lots of interesting support races to watch on teh Saturday morning.

Will come and say hello.....and get someone to distract Andy with a bag of cheesy wotsits whilst I do over the parts van!!!

Have you got a merchandise stall out the back of the pits selling multi-coloured Ultima T-shirts and mugs? No? Shame....smile (in joke BTW!)

Best of luck!!!

Pete

macgtech

Original Poster:

997 posts

165 months

Wednesday 21st September 2011
quotequote all
It should be a great event. Like you say there are plenty of support races, and the entry list for the main event is interesting to say the least - there are some nice cars on there.

We are saving the merchandise stand until next year - just drafting the CV for the merchandise and promotions manager position we have open!

Jonny

LuckyP

6,243 posts

231 months

Wednesday 21st September 2011
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macgtech said:
...just drafting the CV for the merchandise and promotions manager position we have open!...
You forgot the wink LOL!!!

Stig

11,822 posts

290 months

Wednesday 21st September 2011
quotequote all
Would love to come along and support this. Need any help with the spanners? smile

Now to try and blag some tickets...

chuntington101

5,733 posts

242 months

Wednesday 21st September 2011
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car looks great!did you do any custom work to the car or are all the bits avalaible form the factory (its looked like the latter form the build site)?

Chris.

macgtech

Original Poster:

997 posts

165 months

Wednesday 21st September 2011
quotequote all
chuntington101 said:
car looks great!did you do any custom work to the car or are all the bits avalaible form the factory (its looked like the latter form the build site)?

Chris.
Hi Chris,

The car has had a huge amount of custom work carried out to it. The build site has been deliberately left before the final stages of the build (before any significant development work has been done to it) for obvious reasons. Nearly every aspect of the car has been modified in some way to make the car more suitable for endurance racing - the chassis itself is the only major part that has not been modified to any great extent.

Make no mistake, the standard car is very fast, however endurance racing is a totally different kettle of fish to hard trackday use or even sprint racing. For example, the fuelling system was redesigned to take an endurance spec tank, complete with all the suitable dry break fuelling connectors that are mandatory. This is simply impossible without a significant amount of redesign of various aspects of the car. Numerous items has been relocated or redesign so that they can be checked/changed easily and quickly mid race if necessary. Extra redundancy has also been built in a lot of the systems, along with many many modifications to improve the reliability and performance of the car over extended periods of time.

Jonny

macgtech

Original Poster:

997 posts

165 months

Wednesday 21st September 2011
quotequote all
Stig said:
Would love to come along and support this. Need any help with the spanners? smile

Now to try and blag some tickets...
Hi Stig,

Thanks for the offer - we are just reviewing our crew requirements, and I *think* we could do with one more set of hands if you are interested?

Jonny

Edited by macgtech on Wednesday 21st September 13:56

LuckyP

6,243 posts

231 months

Wednesday 21st September 2011
quotequote all
Do you need a pitlane babe? I have a variety of wigs......

Stig

11,822 posts

290 months

Friday 23rd September 2011
quotequote all
macgtech said:
Hi Stig,

Thanks for the offer - we are just reviewing our crew requirements, and I *think* we could do with one more set of hands if you are interested?

Jonny

Edited by macgtech on Wednesday 21st September 13:56
More than happy to help (and well used to working in the paddock). Was at Silly yesterday - the 'Wing' is a vast improvement on the Jimmy Brown end - very odd being at the southern end of the circuit for the 'start' though!

Drop me a PM if you need another set of hands. Overalls and gloves at the ready smile

YIIHAA

338 posts

258 months

Friday 23rd September 2011
quotequote all
Stig said:
Overalls and gloves at the ready smile
Apron and scrubbing brush would be more appropriate, you're on wheel cleaning and tea making duties wink

Good luck. Is any of the race televised?

macgtech

Original Poster:

997 posts

165 months

Friday 23rd September 2011
quotequote all
YIIHAA said:
Apron and scrubbing brush would be more appropriate, you're on wheel cleaning and tea making duties wink

Good luck. Is any of the race televised?
It will be televised at a later date on Sky, Motors TV and ESPN. The organisers have also told us that it will be streamed live online on the Britcar Website, and they agreed to send us the code for the live stream so we can also have it on our site. Exciting times!

Jonny

Pb3

1,064 posts

252 months

Saturday 24th September 2011
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Does anybody know if camping is possible that weekend, I can't find anything on the Silverstone site. Or are we supposed to fall asleep in the grandstands?

Dierk

33 posts

157 months

Sunday 25th September 2011
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macgtech said:
We would just like to say a huge thank-you to the Ultima Factory who have agreed to provide us Factory Support for any spares etc that we may require throughout the event. This is an enormous help to us and should give us 'one over' the opposition from a reliability and support perspective.

Little over a week to go now!

Jonny
Thumbs up. Great to see factory support for the Ultima on track.

Keeping fingers crossed .... Don't forget to post some pics/videos either here or on your facebook page :-)

GarethGTR

303 posts

177 months

Sunday 25th September 2011
quotequote all
macgtech said:
We would just like to say a huge thank-you to the Ultima Factory who have agreed to provide us Factory Support for any spares etc that we may require throughout the event. This is an enormous help to us and should give us 'one over' the opposition from a reliability and support perspective.

Little over a week to go now!

Jonny
WOW! Nice one Ultima! This is GREAT to see :-)