Sadly due to work commitments in Spain, Paul O’Neill was unable to race at Brands Hatch, however he WILL be out fielding the second car at Thruxton Circuit on the 26th April.

The weekend started off well after a strong qualifying session by Martyn which saw us settle in 15th place on the grid. Despite being more than half way back on the grid it was great for a number of reasons. Firstly, by his own admission, Martyn is a racer not a qualifier and prefers to race against other cars as opposed to the clock. Secondly we were only 0.143 seconds off the fastest time posted by Dave Pinkney in his Team Dynamics Honda Civic – a newer car run by a team with a much bigger budget than ours. Finally, last season Martyn qualified in 24th position. We had been set to qualify a strong 13th however we missed out on the last few minutes of qualifying after Jelley put his Team RAC BMW in the gravel trap, bringing a halt to proceedings and loss of the heat in our tyres with not much time to get them warm again. Pinkney and George just finding a tenth of a second before Jelley’s off.

Race One

The first race saw Martyn fighting with the likes of Tom Chilton and Dan Eaves, which saw him bring the car home in a comfortable tenth place. The Integra proved it still has pace as Martyn spent the last 7 or so laps of the race gaining on Dan Eaves and lapping just .080 of a second than the Cartridge World Seat Leon.

Having known how dedicated Martyn is and how hard he works to get a decent result, it was great to at last see him prove that he does have what it takes to race in the BTCC and that having a decent car is half the battle won! He came back to the pits to lots of cheering fans, to us he had just won the race.

Race Two

Despite starting from tenth on the grid for race two the Team sunshine.co.uk Integra conceded two places early in the race as the grid jostled for position entering the first turn into Paddock Hill Bend and subsequently Druids hairpin at the top of the hill. This didn’t stop Martyn holding on to a fine twelfth, less than two seconds behind Jason Plato.

Race Three

As the sun set on the opening three rounds of the season Martyn and the trusty Honda Integra once again took to the grid, having had some cosmetic damage repaired by the Techspeed boys. Once again the car was bought home tenth once more and another point’s finish for the weekend. As was pointed out, we have finished the first meeting of the season with more points than we finished the whole of the 2008 season.

“Without doubt that was my best weekend in the BTCC,” he said. “I know I scored points with the BMW, but they were points I picked up, whereas at Brands Hatch, I raced for them. I had confidence in the car and was able to push a lot more, and the Integra really seems to suit me – even if I did make a fool of myself by going to get in the wrong side before the first practice session!

“I’m thrilled to bits with how the weekend went for me, the team and the sponsors. I now have a car that will allow me to show what I can do and I wasn’t a million miles away on the times. To be less than 20 seconds behind race winner Jason Plato in race three shows how far we’ve come.

“Brands Hatch has never been my best circuit, so hopefully there is more to come as the season goes on, and while I was aiming for top tens this weekend, I now want to try and be getting towards the top eight. I also can’t wait for Paul to join me in the second car, as he is a proven race winner and will only help to push me on. There is no reason why we can’t have the two sunshine.co.uk cars battling for points.”

The Team sunshine.co.uk Honda Integra was the also the highest placed BTC spec car over all three races. The team come away standing eighth in the overall team standings and seventh in the independents championship.

Join us on Facebook: Official Team sunshine.co.uk fan group

I travelled up to Rockingham on the Wednesday morning with the other half, with the aim of arriving just before Martyn and Paul were due to film their pre season introduction for ITV. Sadly due to unforeseen circumstances (The wife took ages to get ready), we didn’t arrive at the circuit until 12:30 – we were hoping to be there about 11:30. Martyn and Paul were already ‘having fun’ in front of the cameras when we eventually arrived.

As it happened there wasn’t much to do on the Wednesday afternoon apart from stand around talking and drinking the free beverages from the Dunlop Café – thanks Dunlop. We also had the team wear to distribute which came courtesy of another team sponsor – ARCO.

Thursday was an early one with some dedicated members of the team being at the circuit by 7:30am. We awoke to a nice blanket of fog, but with a promise of sunshine in the afternoon. On arrival at the circuit though we were greeted by a clear blue sky and more importantly, plenty of sunshine!

We spent most of the morning in the glorious sunshine with the car out in the pit lane for the media to take pictures. We then had various other media shoots, such as the drivers and the cars on the grid etc. The photo shoot that I was most looking forward to, was the one where they strap you in the back of a people carrier with the boot open and get the touring cars to follow close behind, so you can get some shots of the car in motion. Sadly as I didn’t have any public liability insurance sorted yet I couldn’t take part, but the lads from Brooklands78 (Steve & Bob Knightley) got some cracking shots, which you can view on their website.

My own personal moment of humiliation came during the morning session when I went out with my camera to take some pictures of the Motorbase Grid Girls and the photographer stood next to me leant over and very loudly said “It helps if you take the lense cap off…” Yeah thanks mate!! He must have been checking out my gear to notice – lense envy no doubt.

After lunch the circuit allows the public to enter free of charge and the cars took to the track for an afternoon of testing. I have to say that the testing didn’t quite go to plan but was great nonetheless. Both Martyn and Paul were sharing the car and using it as an opportunity to collect data and get some laps in on a dry track.

Between the lads and about 20 laps they managed put in some very quick laps, one of which was a 1min 25.5secs. That’s 1.9secs off the pace of the guys at the front. It’s worth pointing out that the likes of Vauxhall, RAC & Dynamics were running on brand new tyres and were not carrying any success ballast – we were initially running on tyres that are 2 years old. So with new tyres on the Integra we should be able to make at least another half a second, which doesn’t sound much but when you think that the slightly faster S2000 cars will soon pick up some ballast weight when the season starts, we have a very competitive car on our hands.

For the second part of the test session we had some new rubber (tyres) for the car and had hopes of bringing our lap times down even more, however disaster struck. A piston had split in the engine. This spelt an end to our testing for the day and shut the door on the opportunity to find those quicker lap times.

At this point it was getting on for 3pm and it didn’t make sense to change the engine there, so the car was packed up to go back to the workshop where the engine will have to come out to be rebuilt. If your interested, to rebuild an engine like this it costs around £15,000 and it needs to be done every 1000km – so no trips to the supermarket in this motor!

A couple of jokes from the garage, which if you were anywhere near Martyn & Marvin, you probably would have them heard more than a few times!

“Did you know we have a sunroof this year…”

“Have you? How?”

“We got a big sunshine sticker and stuck it on the roof…”

A new Middle East crisis erupted last night as Dubai Television was refused permission to broadcast ‘The Flintstones’.

A spokesman for the channel said:

“A claim was made that people in Dubai would not understand the humour… but we have heard that people in Abu Dhabi Do”.

All in all a great couple of days and very productive, was great to see some familiar faces and get out there with the car and its new livery. We have a very professional and friendly team and I can’t wait for the season to start and get stuck in.

Next stop Brands Hatch on 24th March for the last testing session of the pre season.

The cars spotted were carrying the livery of what could be a works team and also a independents livery. The biggest shock however was the drivers themselves, none other than Fabrizio Giovanardi (#1) and Erkut Kizilirmak (#90). The pair were snapped during a cold and wet day, rounding Becketts in to the Club Straight…

Giovanardi (#1) leads Erkut Kizilirmak (#90)

Other speculation is that what we see here is not a works team but a whole new BTCC spec for 2009. Forget S2000, forget BTCC spec, this is Dolly Spec.

Thats right people, racing spec Citroen 2 CV ‘Dollies’. As we rapidly approach the start of the 2009 BTCC season it looks the recession hit teams maybe looking to make some cost saving moves to secure their place on the grid.

This season you are able to purchase tickets for the BTCC from us which will include the following.

Race Day Entry

Team sunshine.co.uk goodies, which include a new and improved team drawstring bag and money can’t by team cap – which either of the drivers will be happy to sign for you.

Access to the Team sunshine.co.uk hospitality marquee all day which will include Breakfast, Lunch and afternoon tea. In addition tea, coffee, soft drinks beer and wine will be available to you all day, as well as somewhere warm/dry to escape if the weather is poor. Inside the marquee we have a plasma TV showing the days racing live.

Access to the team garage throughout the day (over 16’s only), especially during the actual races as the garage has a TV monitor as well as complete lap timings etc. Please note that access to the garage is dependent on workload of the mechanics and if your health and safety could be at risk.

It’s worth noting that the world class caterers for our hospitality unit also cater for BTCC Team VXR – Vauxhall.

Of course you will meet the drivers, Martyn Bell & Paul O’Niell more than once during the day and if you’re very lucky, in some instances we can arrange a walk on the grid before a race starts. (This is strictly limited and isn’t always available.)

The cost is £125 + VAT pp. I know it sounds like a lot but you really will have an unforgettable day and I can assure you that you will be made to feel like part of the team.

If your interested you can contact me on 01252 761029 and ask for Chris.

I have written this based on information on BTCC.net & Crash.net

Team sunshine.co.uk – Honda Integra

Martyn Bell
Paul O’Niell

Team RAC – BMW 320i

Colin Turkington
Stephen Jelly

Arena – Ford Focus ST

Tom Chilton

Kartworld – MG ZS

Jason Hughes

VXR Racing – Vauxhall Vectra

Fabrizio Giovanardi
Matt Neal
Andrew Jordan

Jackson Motorsport – BMW 320i

Mat Jackson

Maxtreme – SEAT Toledo

Liam MacMillan

Cartirdge World Zero Carbon Racing - Seat Leon

Dan Eaves
Adam Jones

Tempus Racing – Chevrolet Lacetti

Harry Vaulkhard

Once again Martyn Bell will be carrying the sunshine.co.uk ‘flag’ as he takes to the drivers seat for his fourth season in BTCC. Martyn is looking to build on the success he had last year having gone from a rear wheel drive BMW into the ex-works Vauxhall Astra.

This year Martyn will be joined by a team mate, ex vauxhall works driver Paul O’Neill. Paul – a proven BTCC winner, hasn’t raced a full season since 2003, when he was diagnosed with diabetes.