News > Speed GT World Challenge
 
In the second week of March, Craig jetted off to the USA to go to the World famous Sebring 12 hours. With no firm deals put together for the season ahead, it seemed like it could have been a quiet year, so it was decided to look further a field for racing opportunities. Supporting the first round of the American Le Mans series was the Speed World Challenge. The series has two races each weekend, 1 40-minute race for touring cars, and a second 50-minute for the GT class. Autosport Designs Racing had just bought 2 of Aston Martins Racing’s finest DBRS9’s to contest the 2006 season. Having been in contact with this new team throughout the off-season Craig went to lend a hand on the 2 cars, one with Johnny Mowlem at the wheel, and team owner Tom Papadopoulos driving the other.
 
This was the first time the cars had turned a wheel and Craig was straight into the mix. There were a few teething problems with the cars, problems that were to be expected. The team had very little time in the run up to the season, with Johnny’s number 44 arriving just a couple of weeks before the first race. After a good days testing, Johnny and Tom took the cars into qualifying. Unfortunately, Johnny was to only manage 3 laps, as the gear linkage became disconnected. Tom put a strong run in, with the cars ending up 15th an 21st respectively. With the linkage repaired, and a misfire hopefully fixed on Johnny’s car, the team was optimistic for the race. Things did not start well, Johnny was judged to have jumped the start, and as he exited the pit lane from a stop go penalty, the gear linkage came off again and Johnny was out. Tom however was still running strong, getting to the fringes of the top 10. He put in a solid drive and gave the team its first result. All in all not a bad weekend.

There was only a two-week break to the second round of the championship at St Petersburg, where the series was supporting the Indy Racing League. With the team having made a lot of progress with the cars and hoping to have fixed all the issues, there was a good feeling.

Unfortunately, some of the same problems were still in evidence, Johnny was still suffering from a misfire throughout testing and the cars still had the same under steer issues. With a huge effort overnight the team managed to put an entirely new wiring loom into Johnny’s car, fixing the misfire. Qualifying went well, with Johnny fastest in his group, putting him midfield on the grid. Tom was close behind. Unfortunately disaster was to strike before the start of the race, when Johnny had a fire on board the car on the warming up lap. It meant he would not start the race. Tom had a difficult time, being taken out by a competitor mid race when running well. So both cars left the weekend with damage.

With just 5 days until the Long Beach races, and a 3-day drive for the truck it was decided to head back to the teams base in New York and try to sort the issues for the Mid Ohio race in mid May, supporting the ALMS. The team head to Lime Rock, close to the teams base, on the 9th of May for testing, with updated engines and suspension packages.