Not quite a new leaf for British Gamers



2 championship wins, 14 race wins and 2 podiums in the TEC. Quite a reasonable and productive start to look back on for our first year in TORA. Unsurprisingly, we want to kick on from our past success and carry that form into the 2013 season, and we aim to do that with a bang!

To start off, there were the lows and highs of our season, some of which involved getting to grips with how TORA ran by stepping into CQR’s backyard, by putting two teams straight into the Touring Car series, a bold move considering we had and still have no one in our ranks that has a speciality in tuning cars in that said class.

The start was one we had hoped for, with the team managing to grasp a race win in its first ever meeting on TORA, though this was to be a rare feeling as the season progressed, as only a 1-2 finish by the team in Catalunya was to be the only other time we tasted champagne in the Touring Car championship.

Moving on to the highly anticipated TORA 24 hours of Le’ Mans we unveiled not only what our car would be for this event, but what it would be for the upcoming GT Season 9 series, the BMW M3 GT2 in the now iconic Vodafone livery that the team dons.

To much the surprise of many, it was not the Vodafone car that was able to claim a podium finish in its class at Le Mans, due to technical difficulties, but the Audi R8 driven by the much unfancied 2nd team of the British Gamers, who managed to claim 2nd in the GTE class. This brought about a renewed suggestion that indeed there was strength in depth throughout our driver roster.

This success boosted us onto the GT championship, where we had more knowledge in how to tune and setup the car, thus resulting in 4 race wins, 3 from BG Wumba and a 1-2 finish at the Nurburgring GP by BG Hainesy and BG Beanz. This resulted in a long hard fought, but enjoyable battle with CQR Bulldogs for the teams’ championship, in which Vodafone British Gamers finished runner up. We all acknowledged that the season had gone far better than any of us expected (Even if it did appear at times that Beanz was carrying the rest of the team on his back! Though he is still aching for his first race win in the series).

In between the GT series we had TORA Britcar, and it looked very much so like a tantalising battle was to occur in the GT class between the British Gamers, F4H and CQR, but circumstances where technical difficulties for two of the three teams spoiled this battle, while our lower spec team gave a good account of itself in the Dodge Omni.
As the series’ were drawing to an end, British Gamers found itself more success in the shape of two championship winners, Wumba who had claimed victory in the ISCC Season 4 America GTC class, while Beanz ran out the victor in the Porsche Supercup Pro class.

The last TEC race of the year at the 8 hours of Nurburgring yielded yet one more podium, with a solid and effort building drive by Beanz and BG Smithy to gain the final step on the podium in the SP1C class, with Box and BG Blackbird also giving a good account of themselves.

Looking ahead to where we are now, we feel comfortable in the TORA environment and have found ourselves in the perfect place to continue racing in the most competitive, fair and organised racing community there is.

This has led us to be pleased to fully announce our participation in TORA’s GT Season 10 by entering two teams, the runner up team of Vodafone BG from last season, incorporating Blackbird as a driver change, while Smithy moves over to the WestCoast racing team led by BG Scarlett, which is hoping to push for honours in the works championship.

Vodafone BG



West Coast Racing



On a final note, we will be entering the Touring Car championship again, and to anyone out there who is experienced enough in setting up these types of cars and is interested in racing for us, then you know where to find us!

Report by BG Wumba