Testing Jaguar XK140 race car ahead of Donington Historic Festival

We’ve been testing the XK140 race car. Following the recent return of the Mira-Gomez XK140 for the 2019 season, we’ve been busy preparing the car for Donington Historic Festival. Now that the car has some proper power from the new race engine, things are getting pushed a lot harder. One of those things being the driver! To help keep the driver in his seat we’ve changed the old leather bucket for a new Tillet B6 Screamer. We’ve had custom leather panels made up to match the existing leather interior.

Prior to Donington Historic Festival, Shaun has been at Brands hatch testing the XK140 race car. Now that the is going quicker we will be looking into some other other upgrades to aid handling.

XK140 race car testing Brands Hatch XK140 race car testing Brands Hatch

Goodwood 77th Members Meeting

Goodwood’s season opening, 77th Members Meeting was as great as any Members Meeting before it. Even without all the snow! For many weeks we’ve been in preparation for the Betty Richmond Trophy. Getting our FIA Appendix K Mini Cooper S ready to do battle with 59 others. We decided early on that we were going to put in a good effort and make the most of this opportunity. The original engine wasn’t making enough power to compete with most of this grid so we chose to build a new one. We went to Swiftune for many of the internal components and built ourselves an engine with comparable performance.

Charles Rainford was to pilot the car, however, other than one test session he was new to racing Minis. Even still, in qualifying he brought the car home in 16th out of 30 cars. The first heat was Saturday afternoon and after a long, 4-car, battle Charles managed to finish 13th. In doing so he clinched a much desired spot in Sundays final. Sundays final race was fairly straight forward and despite an overheating clutch issue, in addition to a slow puncture we finished the weekend 24th overall out of 60 Minis. We couldn’t be happier with this result. Thanks to Chris Harper and Mini Sport for all their help. If you are interested in reading about how to build an FIA Appendix K Mini and how we built our car, check out our BOOK.

FIA Appendix K Mini Goodwood 77th Members Meeting FIA Appendix K Mini Goodwood 77th Members Meeting Charles Rainford CCK Historic FIA Appendix K Mini Goodwood 77th Members Meeting

Jaguar E-type race car on the rollers

We had another historic racer in from Paul Kennelly. This time his recently prepped Jaguar E-type. The standard of preparation on this car is very high, much the same as Paul’s Austin-Healey. This E-type racer is built like the early steel bodied cars you see in the Kinrara Trophy at Goodwood rather than the Lightweight and Semi-lightweights you see in the TT. We spent some time on the rolling road setting up the triple SU carburettors.

HRDC Donington saw heavy rain for the Cheetah

Storm Callum arrived at Donington this Sunday and wreaked havoc on the grids. A major accident in the MX5 race postponed activities until they could get the ambulances back. Burford did his best with a clean qualifying, in the torquey Cheetah, in the most unsuitable conditions for the car. Due to the extreme weather the race was delayed and with the forecast for rain to continue, we called it a day. Thank you to the HRDC and all of the organisers and marshals for doing their best in the terrible weather. Fingers crossed for a dry day next time

Spa Francorchamps with Jaguar XK140

The week following Goodwood Revival we were packing up and heading out to Spa with the Jaguar XK140. A new full race 3.4 litre engine from Nick Finburgh was delivered less than a week before the classic Belgian event. The engine went in, the car was prepped and transported out to Spa for the Motor Racing Legends Woodcote Trophy race in support of the famous Spa 6hour race. Qualifying took place on Friday with the race on Saturday. The new engine proved itself immediately with 20 seconds coming off the previous years best lap time. Unfortunately one of the 1/2 shafts broke just before the end of the race. Back in the UK the car is now getting prepped for the Algarve Classic Festival at Portimao in Portugal.