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A WET END TO THE SEASON

A disappointing final day at Donnington on the 1st November, for the last round of the LMA Euro saloons.

Qualifying on the 5th row of the grid in the wet, and gaining a few places into Redgate things were looking pretty good. BUT, we then lost 3rd gear completely and it was jumping out of second gear too, by the end of the 2nd lap. So our race was run!!



“ A very dull and mainly wet November at Donington”




SOME GOOD NEWS

We have a new addition to the team, as we have acquired the R400 Caterham from David Mayes which won the Avon Tyres Caterham Superlight Challenge this year,helped by a great haul of 10 outright wins.

The car will be driven by Marcus (my protégé!) and will continue to be maintained by Taylors Foundry Motorsport and will compete in the Superlight challenge, in the new 2009 season.

Full TV coverage of the series will be on Sky Sports and will take in some famous circuits including, Spa Francochamps, Silverstone International, Donington and Oulton Park to mention a few.

Taylors won the championship team title by a brilliant 100 point margin in 2008.

News and updates on both cars will appear regularly on the www.hogarthracing.com website.

Finally in closing the 2008 season, a BIG thank you to all our sponsors and helpers who made it all possible... thank you, and we hope you will enjoy a more diverse and successful new 2009 season, now we are running the 2 cars!

15th July 2008 - Rockingham

Rockingham was a double header race meeting, with races scheduled for Saturday and Sunday 12th & 13th July.
 
To say things didn’t go to plan would be an understatement...
 
On the way to the start of qualifying on Saturday morning, in the race car (being towed, which we do so as not to overheat the engine and clutch)  the towing Quad gave up, half way through the one way
 
tunnel to the paddock collecting area. We just made it and were the last car out on to the circuit !
 
After a few sighting laps, as I’ve never raced at the Rockingham circuit before, and now with some heat in the tyres I started to enjoy the occasion.
 
Then on lap 9, no drive out of a corner, the clutch had failed. The repair requires the removal of the engine, so pack up and back to base camp!
 
I ended up with no racing that weekend, just a 380 mile round trip and a night away....
 
But, we are looking forward to another trip to Silverstone on the 9th and 10th of August.

4th June 2008 - 2008 Season Update

Brands Hatch is our next round of the LMA euro saloon championship on Sunday 15th June.

So far this season we have competed at Snetterton & Oulton Park (dropping Castle Combe) with 7 more meetings to go, and with 11 rounds left.

We now have 48 points, and we are 3rd= in our 'A' class and 10th overall, out of almost 50 competitors and 57 registered to compete.

The LMA series is proving very popular and the possibility of some 'split grids' is a possibility in the future, such is the interest.

The final round is at Donington Park on the 1st & 2nd of November, a date for the diary, with firework displays to finish off the weekend and the season.
That's sometime off yet, so lets hope for some decent weather and some more great racing during the summer months!

We are also planning a couple of outings at Croft later in the season, to take in a couple of guest rounds of the Northern Sports & saloon Car Championship (NSSCC).

The spare engine is undergoing a rebuild at present with Premier Power, it should be back with us for the end of June. No pressure there then Stuart !!!
Taylor Foundry Motorsport do a great job keeping the Mondeo ST running, and are busy rebuilding the clutch as I write this.

As always, a big thank you to all our sponsors (see 'partners' page) who help make our little operation tick, and help us to pay the bills...

31st March 2008

The 2008 Seasons Underway

Following pre-season testing at Mallory Park and at then again at Snetterton on the 19th March we were rapidly approaching the start of the new 2008 season!

Mallory went well, but a driveshaft snapped at Snetterton. The good news? If it had not broken there, it probably would have ‘given up’ during the first race.

The Super Tourers are great to race, but the costs of running them for privateer racers like myself, can sometimes be a bit painful!

Many of the parts are bespoke to that car, and unfortunately our drive shafts were included in that ! With their own design & pattern, and being made of Titanium for strength and lightness, they don’t come cheap.

Snetterton - Sunday 30th March 2008

A big race field for the first race of the season with a full 34 cars on the grid for qualifying.

Loosing the clutch after a few laps (but quickly sorted by the guys from Taylor’s Foundry Motorsport who run/support my race car) we managed to get

A few more laps in and qualified on the 9th row for the first race.

With a dry track and some milky sunshine the racing was great and the predicted showers fortunately didn’t materialize. A brilliant first day of summer!

We finished 12th overall, and 7th in class ‘A’ from the 34 starters. That then put me on the 6th row of the grid for the 2nd race of the day.

The second race again was in glorious sunshine with a full grid, but with so many cars going into Riches on the first lap the going was very interesting with cars

Spinning and very little time and room to get past. The safety car was also out for 3 laps whilst the Noble of Mal Davison was recovered from turn one.

(Mal was also involved in an incident in race 1 just after the ‘bomb-hole’, due to him having another race car parked on his bonnet!)

Fortunately both drivers were fine.

After a great battle with Ian Craig in his BMW M3 I managed to finish 5th in class and 10th overall. With 20 points, in the bag we are looking forward to round 3 at

Oulton Park on the 19th April.

Many of the rounds this year are televised and will be shown on Sky TV (Motors TV). A big thank you to LMA and Snetterton for a great days racing…

For a full update of the season so far, with dates and reports visit: www.lmaeurosaloons.co.uk

October 23rd 2007 - Donington Park

Our sponsors enjoyed a great day out at Donington Park. The day started with demo laps by the race car, followed by some hot laps taking our sponsors round and around the circuit in the Caterham R400 and a Lamborghini Superleggera . The weather was very kind to us on the day and everybody enjoyed great catering provided by the Donington team. Possibly next year we may have more success with the dB rating and avoid the two black flags we got this year for noise!!!