The Securitas Retro Race team finished its first year of competition with two third places in the Thailand Championship series. The Mk1 Ford Escort ran in both the radial tyre challenge and the slick tyre challenge.
The driver, Dr. Iain Corness, put the amazing result down to the reliability of the car and the team’s consistency in results, beating amongst others a 400 bhp Porsche 944. “In the entire season, we failed to finish on only two occasions, while the Porsche had a spate of unreliability, and even had to miss one complete race weekend,” he said.
Securitas Retro Mk1 Ford Escort battles with the Germans and the Japanese.
Securitas MD Steve Graham said that the Ford Escort was a very popular car with the spectators, being looked upon as the underdog, punching way above its weight. It was also a car that many people related to, with a Mk1 Ford Escort featuring in so many peoples lives in the 1970’s.
The 2012 season for the highly competitive Nitto races begins in the first week in May and all competitors are super-tuning their cars for the 2012 championship. Some of the BMW’s have been altered to a ‘wide body’ configuration like Frank Teeuwin in the B-Quik BMW, as well as some drivers fitting V8 engines, such as Gavin Charlesworth with his EBC E30. Henk Kiks in the B-Quik Porsche 944 has a new race engine being built in America and if he can get the reliability he wants he will be a threat to the top step of the podium. Another team to watch will be the Urs Schonenberger team with an E36 BMW to be driven by US driver Bobby Brooks, a Holden V8 to be driven by Urs himself and another Mk1 Ford Escort fitted with a two liter engine to be driven by Valentino, of Valentino’s restaurant fame (next to Foodland, Central Road).
