BT Motorsport were presented an opportunity to enter the Hamilton ITM400 through our association with GTRNZ, given the significant exposure available for sponsors we decided to enter despite any nervousness associated with the event, given Stephen the driver, has never competed in a street circuit event.
We arrived on Thursday afternoon to the heat and humidity of Hamilton, and proceeded to unload our gear and set up in the pre erected marquees, adjacent to fellow Taranaki drivers Dave Geraghty and Shaun Van Beers. Once set up we decided to walk the track, to get a feel for the circuit and to look out for any areas of concern ahead of testing the following day. This was an awesome experience as we followed around the Stone Brothers race team, and driver Shane Van Gisbergen as they methodically went through the track analysing each corner and bump. This was followed by a drivers briefing for us later that afternoon.
Friday continued in the same vein as Thursday with the sun shining. We had a 15min test session, 5min break, followed immediately by a 15min qualifying session. Given Stephen hadn’t driven for a few weeks, and a few months prior to that the test session was rather slow to get familiarised with the track, and to take the opportunity to ‘bed in’ the new brake discs and pads installed on the car during the week. After a few laps Stephen returned to the pits to give everything an opportunity to cool down ahead of the qualifying session. Stephen started to push a bit harder during this session, gaining confidence with the car and the new Kumho Tyres provided by Blairs. The session was cut short however, and Stephen could only manage to qualify 7th but is confident he could have got higher up the order if the session wasn’t cut short. We spent the remainder of the day watching action from the track, including V8 Supercar practice sessions, drift demonstrations and various other support classes.
The BT Motorsport team arrived on Saturday morning to fairly heavy rain. We were running in the Muscle & Touring car class with our first race at 10.45am. Unfortunately the weather didn’t clear and we decided to put the full wet tyres on the car, which proved to be a wise decision. After qualifying 7th we started off the 4th row of the grid, in a standing start situation in fairly heavy rain. Stephen had a fantastic start and managed to get up to 2nd place just before the first corner. Unfortunately Stephen was a bit ambitious with his braking ability on cold tyres and couldn’t pull the car up in time for the corner, and under steered wide but was able to re-gather the car and slot back into 5th position, and had moved up to 4th before turn two. Stephen was stuck behind the Ford Mustang of Bruce Anderson who made the car rather wide in the first couple of laps, which also had 700+ HP under the hood which we couldn’t compete with down the straights. Stephen made the decision to maintain the 4th position rather than take any risks in trying to pass the Mustang, and to see out the remainder of the race. Unfortunately on the 5th lap of the race the actuator arm on the waste gate (which controls boost to the turbo) failed and Stephen lost all power. Not knowing what the problem was Stephen immediately returned to the pits so as to not incur any unnecessary damage to the vehicle, resulting in a DNF for Race One. BT Motorsport, sponsors and Stephen got significant exposure from this race on Gillette Motorsports television coverage of the event. We are trying to obtain a DVD copy of this race (along with the others) which we can then integrate into the in-car video taken from ‘SPEC C’.
The rain continued on and off for the remainder of Saturday, with our second race at 1.25pm. We made the decision in consultation with Chief Engineer Dave Heerdegen of Dtech Motorsport to run Kumho’s V700 asymmetrical semi slick, rather than full wets, as the weather at the time was drying. Unfortunately given the DNF of race one we were required to start off the rear of the grid in 16th position, again in a standing start race format. Stephen again had another good start but was ‘boxed in’ by the cars in front of him, having no choice but to brake to avoid contact. The wide range of cars in the class made racing rather frustrating as there was a mixture of high HP rear wheel drive muscle cars, and nimble 4WD turbos such as BT Motorsports ‘SPEC C’ which each have their strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately the Hamilton street circuit does have limited passing opportunities so Stephen really had to choose his moments wisely when passing cars. To add to this the rain continued and the choice to go out on intermediates turned out to be the wrong one, with Stephen struggling to pull the car up for corners, and to put the power down on corner exit. This however did provide significant exposure again on the big screens at the venue with a number of “drifts” shown when exiting corners. Disappointingly Race two was not shown on Gillette Motorsport on Sunday’s coverage. By the end of the race Stephen had managed to get the car up to 8th place overall, which the team were pleased with given the trying conditions and the amount of traffic that we had to get through. After a quick clean of the car we called it a day and proceeded to watch the V8 Supercars in very trying conditions in the late afternoon.
Sunday arrived and again the weather was being rather unpredictable, with varying levels of showers throughout the morning, dispersed with bouts of intense sun! The Third race starting order was based off the total aggregate of points accumulated in the prior races, unfortunately given our DNF of race one we were relegated to 14th on the grid. Interestingly enough two ex V8 Supercars were added to the rear of our field to ensure a “muscle car” won the race, as opposed to Japanese cars which had won the previous two races. Whilst we were sitting on the dummy grid it started showering, and we didn’t have an opportunity to change the Kumho slicks for the Kumho intermediates, these showers continued for the first couple of laps, which made the race rather interesting! Stephen had another good start, but was again boxed in by cars in front, rather than taking any risks in the trying conditions Stephen joined the freight train for the first couple of laps, before starting to methodically pass cars in front. Stephen had got up to 6th place by the last lap of the race, after some intense racing getting through the traffic. Stephen was following the big Mustang of Bruce Anderson again for the last lap, Bruce ran wide on the “Big Pond” corner (turn 
and Stephen went down the inside of Bruce and was well ahead on the right hand kink leading up to turn nine which takes the cars back onto the main straight. Disappointingly Bruce didn’t give Stephen any racing room and made contact with Stephen on his left rear wheel, putting the car into a spin, head on into the concrete barriers at approx 140km/h. The car then spun back in the other direction causing damage to the rear of the vehicle as well as the significant frontal damage from the head on impact. Stephen was obviously rather shell shocked after this heavy impact but was able to walk away from the crash in one piece (albeit rather sore and bruised). The entire team are thankful for the modern safety devices in use, including our HANS Device (which was actually a new acquisition for this event), our Racetech head restraint seat, and the extensive roll cage. Disappointingly the car also caught fire after the crash, which took awhile to extinguish. Below is a brief in-car video of the incident:
This was obviously a heartbreaking end to an exciting and successful race weekend, and has unfortunately put BT Motorsport out of competition for the short term, until our engineering partner Dtech Motorsport can make a full assessment of the damage and an economic analysis and feasibility can be completed before making a decision on how and when to proceed with repairs or a new car. Our thanks go to our support team, Dave Heerdegen, Tim Robinson, and team manager Mark Brown-Thomas for the help, support and assistance on site, as well as fellow Taranaki competitors Dave Geraghty and Shaun Van Beers and their respective support teams. Our thanks also go out to those supporters who called, txt or sent messages of support for Stephen and the team after the incident.
Our thanks also go out to the support provided by our sponsors, KCL Property, Blairs/Kumho Tyres, Alaska Interiors, and Dtech Motorsport whom without your support we would not have had the ability to race at this event, and gain the exposure we did.
Best Regards
The BT Motorsport Team
