War Heroes get back on track at Blyton Park

On Thursday 14^th March some twenty soldiers from the new Recovery Centre, Phoenix House at Catterick enjoyed a day at Blyton Park Circuit near Gainsborough driving and being driven in a variety of specially prepared cars around the track.  

Hosted by Mission Motorsport, the Forces’ Motorsport Charity, the aim of the day was to introduce wounded service personnel to the world of Motorsport as part of their recovery and rehabilitation. The charity was founded in 2011 with the primary aim of aiding the recovery and rehabilitation of those affected by military operations by providing opportunities through Motorsport for the wounded. The charity work nationally with servicemen and women coming through Headley Court and Recovery Centres such as Phoenix House, and on behalf of Battle Back – the UK military initiative that uses adaptive adventurous training and sports rehabilitation to help seriously wounded, injured or sick service personnel and veterans.  The charity is formally supported by Help for Heroes.

The programme has been incredibly effective, and has also been very successful launching servicemen into second careers.  “That vocational element is very important” explained Mission Motorsport founder, Maj James Cameron “but we often find that guys and girls have little or no idea of what they can do when they leave the military. It can be hard enough leaving the Services on your own terms, but for those leaving through trauma, or traumatic injury it can be extremely daunting.  We do a lot of work on rebuilding confidence and team skills, and the support of a venue like Blyton Park Driving Centre who understand our needs is just invaluable”

Richard Usher the MD of Blyton Park Driving Centre said  “We are delighted to hand the circuit over to Mission Motorsport as part of our charitable activity and it is very humbling to witness at first hand the courage of men and women who have been grievously wounded whilst carrying out their duties .”

Further details about Blyton Park Driving centre and Mission Motorsport can be found at www.blytonpark.co.uk and  www.missionmotorsport.org   

McLaren shake down at Blyton Park before travelling half way round the world!

Todays leading F1 team McLaren can trace its roots back to the McLaren Elva M1. The Elva-built McLarens were called the MK 1 and powered by a variety of powerplants. 

They had a simple and straightforward design with a frame based on three main tubes incorporating a multi-tubular space frame structured. At all four corners were an independent suspension with widely spaced pickups for the front upper wishbones. The rear had reversed lower wishbones, single upper links and parallel radius rods. Springing was by coil springs and tubular shocks. The gearbox was a Hewland transaxle. The body design was courtesy of Tony Hilder.

This Car M1 20-15 was originally built in 1965 and delivered to the US where it was raced in group 7 USSCR and SCCA race series. Famously winning one of it’s first races at Daytona in the hands of Joe Starkey. The car was later converted to a narrow bodied F5000 single seater FA racer.

The car had a final shake down at Blyton Park on Monday 7^th January prior to be shipped two days later to Melbourne in Australia where it will be raced at Phillip Island on 9/10^th March 2013. Just one week later the McLaren will be competing in the Australian Grand Prix, International Sports Car Challenge support race at Albert Park.

The shakedown was to test a winter rebuild of the 6 litre Chevrolet engine and a newly installed Hewland LG transaxle. Both engine and gearbox were built and the car maintained by Terry Van-Der-Zee of TT motors Racing in Dorset.