TVRs READY TO TAKE THE CHALLENGE

I’ve been involved with the Dunlop TVR Challenge for a few years now and I can’t remember a season that has been more eagerly anticipated than this one. The Readman Racing and Grantura Engineering owned series has continued to cement a working partnership with the TVRCC and the level of behind the scenes support will be taking another step forward this year.

Silverstone on 11’th/12^thMay, is our first meeting of the season and in a repeat of last year, series competitor Jason Clegg and his company STR8SIX sponsor the races. He is definitely one looking forward to the season as he has been testing his own-built Speed six shaped Tuscan and it will (fingers crossed) make its racing debut on the National circuit.

We have 2012 Champion Tim Davis taking the car he won the championship with up a level, where he will contest the RV8 powered Tuscan with the Class A cars. It will be very interesting to see if it is a match for the other AJP powered Class A cars. Dean Cook, Hugh Marshal, Bill Thompson, John Seery and long term racing partner, Keith Vaughan Williams, will be around to make sure he doesn’t have things in own way. There is even a whisper that John Reid will race this year!

We are expecting a fair smattering of special TVR cars with the appearance of Sagaris GT cars piloted by the likes of Tim Hood, Fred Tonge, Steve Glynn and Darren Dowling. These ‘super’ A cars should make life a bit more interesting up front for the GT Cerbera of Mike Saunders, as will the reappearance of Danny Winstanley especially if, as anticipated, Danny won’t be able to qualify the car on Saturday so will start from the back for the races on Sunday.

We have the return of two 2012 rookies; Christian Douglas, who debuted the car at the last race of the season at Oulton, and James Hewitt who will be trying to build on the experience gained in the few outings he had last year. We will see if he can keep pace with the much loved ‘Archbishop’ Chant plus the very experienced Darren Smith and Graham Walden in Class B. We have a few new faces around with the likes of Mark Czajka and the return of the gorgeous Class A Tuscan of Gary Lancashire.

The changes in the regs this year have opened up the entry to more road based TVR conversions and we hope this will see the appearance of some new drivers at the wheel of exciting machinery more familiar to TVR owners in the shape of Griffith and Chimaera. Talking of Griffith, we also hope to see the return of the very familiar Stewart car 93 as things have been very quiet from the North East over the winter and that could mean that Dave has rebuilt the engine of the Griffith that ate itself so spectacularly at Snetterton last season.