SYKES TO RUN THE HILL AT GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED!

Speedworks own Richard Sykes will be joining Ginetta Chairman Lawrence Tomlinson at the Goodwood festival of Speed in the Ginetta G50 EV, the electric prototype which has been developed at the Ginetta factory over the past 18 months.

The Goodwood Hill Climb will see around 200 different cars competing against each other - with the Ginetta duo entered in the 'High Performance Supercars from Around the World' class. After practise sessions on Friday, the winner of each class will be the team who set the fastest time during the official run on Sunday. The current record of 41.6 seconds remains unbeaten and was set in 1999 by Nick Heidfield in a McLaren Mercedes MP4/13.


The Goodwood Festival of Speed takes place from 3-5th July and is considered to be the 'Ascot' of the motoring world with celebrities ranging from Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, David Coulthard, Jay Leno and Bryan Ferry all attending the West Sussex extravaganza.

KIRLEW TO ANGLESEY

After a dismal outing at Donington 2 weeks ago which saw the last race abandoned due to heavy rain and flooding on the track, Scot is looking to get improved results at the North Wales circuit of Ty Croes .

You can catch the Mazda's on track at 10:55 and 16:55 on Sunday 28th June.

SUCCESS FOR HUGHES IN LE MANS

Tony Hughes and Mark Butterworth had a fantastic result in the Le Mans Legends Race at the weekend. Finishing 48th out of 59 cars was a great result considering they started at the back.

They were in Class Two -1949-1953 - 2001cc and above. This was the oldest class of car and the other classes went up to 1965, they came 7th in their class out of 9, beaten by 2 Jaguar 'C' Types and 4 Aston Martin DB2's. Mark Butterworth drove the first 3 laps and Tony Hughes drove the last 4 where he managed the fastest lap, which we did on lap 7 in 6 minutes 45 seconds. In practice the car broke down 4 times but they managed to do one lap (which took 55 minutes and 14 seconds!).

"I had never driven the car before and I had no practice on the circuit due to the car only doing 1 lap in practice. Because of the problems we had had the car wasn't even run in and I was requested to keep the revs down on the long straights." Said Tony, "I've been told that my top speed was somewhere in the region of 125mph, which is not too bad considering the drum brakes were almost non existent once they had been used a few times!"

Stirling Moss came in in 34th position over all.

Tony is next out racing in the Ginetta G50 Cup at Snetterton on 1st/2nd August.

G50 CUP RESULT FROM CROFT CIRCUIT

Last weekend saw the G50s travel to the home circuit of Ginetta Cars. The sun shone all weekend and saw track temperatures reach all time highs, until the end of sunday, just before the final G50 race when the heavens opened and the race was to be started under the safety car. Team principal Christian Dick was the only Speedworks contender this weekend and had impressive pace all through testing and racing finishing 3rd in the first race on sunday, however the wet conditions in the final race caused him to fall from 3rd to 7th by the chequered flag.

The G50s have a 6 week break now and will be racing at Snetterton on the 1st/2nd August.

HUGHES TO LE MANS

Speedworks regular Tony Hughes will be heading out to Le Mans this week to compete in the prestigious Race of Le Mans Legends over the 24hour weekend.

Tony will be co-driver to Mark Butterworth in his stunning 1953, 5400cc, Allard K3. The Allard is a British built car that was shipped over to the States to have the 5.4litre cadillac engine put in, Marks car has just had fitted the tuned up version of the original engine. Mark and Tony will be up against some very stiff competition in their class of 1949 - 1953 machines, Aston Martins, Jaguars and Lotus to name but a few. There are to be an incredible 61 cars starting the 45 minute race, which is part of the build up to the 24hour feature race. "It's a fantastic experience to be not only racing at Le Mans but to be on the same grid as Sir Stirling Moss and many other fantastic drivers," said Tony, "the machinery out there is amazing, and the Allard is a great car and its in Speedworks red!"

You can catch the car out on track for qualifying on Thursday 11th June at 4:00pm and again for the race on Saturday 13th June at 9:30am, but Tony and Mark would love to see any supporters in the pits!

Click here for further information and to go to the Le Mans 24hrs website http://www.lemans.org/24heuresdumans/pages/accueil_gb.html/

Oulton Park Results

Last weekend saw Speedworks racing on home turf at Oulton Park. The weather was glorious sunshine as a heatwave hit the track creating record temperatures. Beacause of time restraints there were only to be two races, one on the Saturday and one on the Sunday.

Race 1 saw a fantastic podium finish by team Principal Christian Dick who came home in 3rd place. It also saw good drives from the rest of the team with Sykes once again teetering on the edge of the top ten and Proctor close behind him. Tony Hughes also had a great drive finishing in 15th.

Race 2 saw Christian Dick starting at the back of the grid after an exhaust clamp had broken on the formation lap. The race got underway and Dick had moved up 5 places within the first lap. The first corner of the second lap and Carl Breeze ran wide onto the grass and subsequently spinning back onto the track and coming to a standstill in front of the oncoming traffic, cars drove everywhere in avoidance but Mark Proctor was totally unsighted and hit Carl head on. The impact was massive and the race was red flagged immediately and Mark had top be cut from his car by the emergency services, he was later transferred to hospital and is now at home recovering from a broken bone in his back. Everyone at Speedworks wishes him well and a speedy recovery.

Because of the severity of the accident, it was not possible to restart the race, therefore the organisers are busy trying to find an alternative race weekend where an extra race can be slotted in.

The next round of the Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup is at Croft circuit on 13th/14th June.