Lynx AE - British GT

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	2004 Championship calendar
3/4 April	Donington Park
8/9 May	Mondello Park
5/6 June	Snetterton
19/20 June	Castle Combe
17/18 July	Oulton Park
13/14/15 August	Silverstone
28/29 August	Thruxton
2/3 October	Brands Hatch

25/26 November	Bahrain (non championsip race)

Round 1&2 Donington Park 3/4 April.

The Bintec GT Prosport 3000 shows promising start to the season at Donington Park. Following an incident on a damp circuit on the Championship media day at Brands Hatch the car was repaired to pristine condition for the Championship opener at Donington Park
During the Saturday morning free practice the car showed that the setup for the wet was superb yet the dry setup needed some fine tuning. In all the team was very happy with the respectable time of 1.16.463 which put the team 25th overall (11th in class). A slight scrape with a Porsche down Craner Curves gave the crew some body work touching up to do but apart from that all went well.	Picture courtesy of Dave Dyer www.f1photographs.co.uk
Qualifying session for Race 1. Barry Murphy took to the wheel to set the qualifying time for race one. The conditions were changeable and the car performed well. Barry qualified the car in 9th position in Cup class (23rd position overall).	Picture courtesy of dailysportscar.com
Qualifying session for Race 2. It was Jon Lee's turn to qualify the car for race 2 on Sunday. Again the session was changeable. First dry then wet so tyre changing was a regular task. No sooner had the session started and so did the rain, Jon immediately pitted for wets. While the Bintec car was stationary all the other cars were sliding around on slicks. It was time for the great wet setup to show. Wets on and Jon was back on the track and the rest of the field came in for wets. Jon immediately set a great time of 1.21 and was running in P1 for a while. The lap times further improved and settled at 1.18.433. With a Final qualifying position of 6th in cup class (18th overall). However by the end of the session slicks were the order of the day. What a great start to the season ahead.
Race 1 Saturday. Barry lined up on the grid in an impressive 9th position in class for the start of his first ever British GT race. Again the weather could not decide what to do and one moment dry then the next wet so the teams tyre changing practice a few days before the meeting was invaluable. The car flying on its wet tyres and the team was hoping for a good finishing position. It was time the the compulsory pit stop to change drivers. Jon got behind the wheel. Things were looking good until a few laps from the end of the exciting 60 min race when Jon radioed in that there was no oil preasure.... The Bintec GT's first British GT race came to an end. Post race investigation found that the oil pump belt had been destroyed.	Picture courtesy of dailysportscar.com
Race 2 Sunday. With a new boil pump belt fitted and a seemingly undamaged engine it was Jon's turn to start the race and lined up in 6th position in class. The team had it's fingers crossed that all would be OK. The race started, Jon made a good start overtaking a few cars when the terrible sound came over the radio that the engine had stopped.... Seized engine. Back at the workshop and it became easy to see what had happened. The conrod had parted from the crankshaft and tried to exit the block.

Next Mondello Park Ireland on 8/9th May, Bintec will be there..

Round 3&4 Mondello Park 8/9 May.

The Bintec Prosport's day is surely not far away... Following the disaster at Donington Park when the engine blew up in dramatic style the team made the trip to Ireland home of Mondello Park just south of Dublin. Since very few of the British GT teams had tested at the Irish circuit before, the organizers allowed 3 familiarization sessions on the Friday. This proved very useful not only for Barry as this was the first time he had visited the circuit but also for Jon who, although he thought he was familiar with Mondello realized that he had forgotten a lot since his last visit.
The familiarization sessions were useful not only for the drivers to learn the circuit but also to bed the engine in following the rebuild. On Saturday morning final last tweaking was possible in 2 practice sessions. With the engine run in the day before and the drivers a bit more familiar with which way the corners of the circuit went a glimpse at what the Prosport was capable of was on the cards. Both drivers returned very respectable times and the team hoped for good things in qualifying.
Qualifying session for Race 1. Under British GT rules each driver has to start a race. Before qualifying, the teams have to nominate which driver will start which race. Just like Donington the Bintec team opted for Barry to start race one and Jon to start race 2. This meant that Barry would have to qualify the car for race 1. Barry got off to a good start. His times progressively getting faster. Despite a heart stopping spin at the 1st corner Barry qualified 11th for Race 1 with a time of 1.56.137.
Qualifying session for Race 2. The 2 qualifying sessions are back to back with just a few minutes to check over the car. A quick check and chat and it was Jon's turn to see what he could do. No sooner had Jon taken to the circuit he was in pole position, He continued to improve on his time and managed to hold P1 until a few laps from the end when the Lotus Elise and Noble posted times just fractions faster and put Jon down to 3rd position. The team was ecstatic with the 3rd position time of 1.47.955. Maybe it was time for the Bintec team to shine. Bring it on....

. Race 1 Saturday. Gentlemen start your engines...... It's show time..... Barry lined up into his grid position along with similarly impressive machinery. The tension mounts as the cars start the green flag lap... the pace car peels off into the pit lane, watch the lights.... The lights go off and Round 3 of the British GT championship is off to a thundering start. Barry set to the task in hand, then suddenly drama, the Jenson Motorsport Corvette went up in flames at the last corner (Dunlop) coming to rest right in front of the Bintec team pit wall position. A Jenson Motorsport team mechanic frantically tried to put the fire out as he waited for marshals to appear. Whilst this was going on another Corvette had spun on oil at Dunlop. A warning was given to Barry seconds before he entered Dunlop and a possible incident was averted. The race now continued under pace car control as the marshals and mechanics tried to get the burning Corvette under control. This gave Barry time to close the gap to the car in front, unfortunately it was not possible to take advantage of the situation and change drivers as we were still 10 mins from the pit stop window. Finally the pace car peeled off and the race was under way once more. Barry was now in a great position to attack, and attack he did. Now up to 7th place and the Morgan Aero 8 ahead, a few laps later and Barry had managed to get past the Morgan and got into 6th place. Now only 3 mins away from the pit stop window the team readied for a driver change. Then, the question.... where is Barry? Out of the race was the answer that came over the radio. The back stepped out on the exit of Bikeworld corner sending the car into a spin which ended with a rear end smash into the Armco barrier on the inside of the circuit. Close inspection showed the damage to be terminal and the team was forced to withdraw from race 1 & 2. The whole rear end of the car was smashed. After seeing the car Jon commented that this was the biggest crash he had seen in his time of preparing Prosports
In the barrier.	The car returns.
	Former competitors (Peter Baldwin & Jon Lee) look on in horror......
Lets hope the car can be repaired for the next race at Snetterton on 5/6th June.

Round 5&6 Snetterton 5/6 June.

Unfortunately due to the extent of the damage to the car and the fact that some of the parts to repair the car are not available and are having to be specially made the Bintec Prosport was unable to attend the Norfolk's fine Snetterton race circuit.

While looking at the lap times that were achieved in the race Jon commented that he has done a lap time on par with the front running NGT cars around Snetterton. A great shame the team did not get to show its full worth.

Round 7&8 Castle Combe 19/20 June.

The Bintec team was looking forward to getting back on the grid for the Castle Combe round of the Championship, However the damage to the car was worse than was first thought meaning that the repairs have exceeded the available budget. Therefore the Bintec Prosport has had to temporarily retire from the 2004 British GT Championship. Rest assured the Bintec Prosport will be back on the grid soon.

Race Car Preparation	LynxAE, Rose Lane Forest Rd., Hanslope Milton Keynes MK19 7DE Tel : 07831 556973
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