Still in One Piece
After a six month layoff Cornish race driver John George was back behind the wheel of a BTCC car for the media day of the Premier British series.
Just in the nick of time TH Motor Sport, the team that runs Guernsey based John George found a replacement car for the Honda Integra that was destroyed live on ITV last September at Brands Hatch.
The replacement Honda Integra last ran in 2006 hadn’t turned a wheel in anger since finishing the 2006 season and was only collected by the team last week,
Trevor Humphries Team Manager said “We just didn’t have time to do anything much we needed to replace the engine and then all we could do was put a spanner on every nut and bolt just to make sure nothing was loose, but was it the right bolt in the hole?”
He also said “We had no idea how the car would run, so seeing John taking the banking flat out in 6th gear at over 100mph was a worry. We gave john a set of 3 lap trials to get the car up to speed and we double checked everything every time and at the end of the day it was Still in One Piece, amazing after being sat for almost 3 years“
The test eventually ended when the engine loom came loose and John had to make a dash to fly himself back to Guernsey from a local airfield.
This years car has a complete change of livery and although still sponsored by JAG Communications the mobile phone company the car is now black with flicks of red on the front wing , in general the fans there on the day seemed to approve.
John’s verdict on the day “The car went much better then I expected I thought we would be breaking down all day but no it was pretty good, my time was within 6 tenths of my pole time last year and as I haven’t had any testing or even seen this car before today that will do as a start, I was a bit apprehensive! you think it will all be ok but in the back of your mind there is always a worry that you may have lost your bottle after such a big shunt, but it seemed to be ok, I will be back at Brands Hatch next week so lets see how that goes.“
Date: 23/03/2009