Two very different approaches to establishing, or re-establishing, GT race programmes hit the DSC Ed’s desk today.
The first hopes to kick start the return to the track for ex British GT Championship winning team Brookspeed.
The Hampshire based outfit have been absent from the top class entry lists since 2008 after plans to move from their Championship winning GT3 Viper programme to an LMPC Oreca came to nought. Since then there have been club racing programmes with Porsches and Ferraris but Martin Braybrook’s latest idea for a potential programme this time is very, very different, involves a GT3 Bentley and approximately zero start-up budget from the team!
Dubbed the Brookspeed Bentley Racing Club the effort is principally dependent on Crowdfunding – For those unfamiliar with the concept this is a funding formula growing in worldwide popularity that sees like minded souls coming together, typically via the internet, to invest usually relatively small sums in a business expansion or start-up.
Brookspeed, of course, have racing heritage on their side and have already been successful in attracting a significant number, albeit not nearly enough yet, initial backers.
The effort though does not lack ambition – it aims for and initial 500 founding members donating £1000 apiece to obtain and operate a brand new Bentley Continental GT3 in a national and international racing programme.
A build slot for the car has been allocated, and if the funding drive is successful the car will be delivered in October ahead of a race debut in December in the Gulf 12 Hours at Yas Marina!
The Brookspeed Bentley Racing Club (BBRC) is a worldwide group of like-minded motorsport enthusiasts who are sharing in the unique opportunity to own and support their very own Bentley GT3 racing car.
The headline effort is to re-unite the 1996 Harrods McLaren trio from Le Mans, Derek Bell as pit wall general, with Justin Bell, his ex-manager James Guess (who is behind the crowd funding idea) and Andy Wallace on driving duty.
There’s a long way to go yet financially and logistically before any of that happens but the efforts website makes it clear that whilst this is not risk-free, 80% of any funding woud be returned to investors if the project failed to come to fruition.
Good luck to all concerned we say.
Check out www.brookspeedbentley.com
