Skater Racing...


and some Marcos History

Marcus (perhaps we should call him Marcos) Potts is uniquely placed to write this detailed item (he was the company's press officer when much of this tale unraveled) and true to form, he provides a marvelous look back to a previous decade, as well as exploring a new addition to the British GT grid.

There was a new name in the paddock for the British GT Media day on Wednesday (March 22 2006), but with it came the return of a fondly-remembered car in a (nearly) familiar livery. Skater Motorsport intends to join the championship this season with one of the Team Marcos LM500 racecar's from 1994, and have been working hard to restore the 12 year-old to something like its youthful vigor. The car is worth a story in itself.

Stephen Keating (right), who owns the team and whose initials and surname inspired the name, may be new to the British GT scene, but is a long-time sportscar enthusiast and brings no mean experience with him. "I remember my Dad had an MG, and then bought my first TVR when I was about 25," he says. "I wrote that off nine months later going too fast in the wet! I decided that the next time I could afford to insure something like that, I'd teach myself how to drive it first."

The next car proved to be a Lotus Esprit. "I did a whole load of track courses and training sessions, thought I could cope, and then wondered where to go next. I started by doing some Sprints - I assumed it was safer being alone on the track! - and from there I progressed through various stages and ended up in Formula Palmer Audi"

Along the way he met up with Mike Sweeney, the team's Chief Racing Engineer. Mike's background includes roughly twenty years in classic motorsport, highlighted by some prestigious appointments preparing such cars as Ray Bellam's GT40, as well as the Honda S2000 that nearly made an appearance in the British GT a few seasons ago. He also prepared many cars for the Healey family, including one raced by Sir Stirling Moss. A bike racer by passion, Mike's experience in Classic Touring Cars tempted Stephen to follow that route. "Mike introduced me to the CTC, racing a Rover SD1 in 2002. that was a hoot! It was lots of fun, but not very fast, so I looked for something a little quicker. Mike found me another Rover, a SD1 Vitesse, and with that I won the Classic Thunder Championship in 2003."

Keating is obviously the kind of person who never stands still for long. "Having done one thing, I'm always looking ahead and up, searching for something more challenging," he suggests. "After winning the Classic Thunder, I teamed up with Kingsley Martin and brought a BMW to race in the VdeV series in france." Keating and martin had been team-mates before, having shared the Raven Motorsports Rover in a one hour TC enduro at Snetterton in 2002, so Keating knew that he and Martin could work well together. "The BMW was a great tool, but not quick enough. We tended to start near the back every time, but always made up a lot of ground to finish in the top third. It was a great introduction to endurance racing, though, and also to the French way of doing things."

Towards the end of 2004 the team's strength was extended by the addition of a MGB, which was raced in the VdeV Historic Championship, while the BMW soldiered on in the 'Modern'. "In its way, the MG was even more fun!" says Keating. "We were amongst some pretty exotic machinery GT40's, Lola T70s, Chevron - but our class was dominated by Porsche 911s - fourteen of them, and us in the Spa six hour we finished sixth in class, only beaten by the non-standard 911s, which was excellent. You don't think of an MG as being a Porsche beater!"

Frustrated by the lack of speed offered by the BMW, Keating sent Mike Sweeney off in search of something with better potential for 2005. With Keating something of a Marcos enthusiast - his daily runabout is the factory's first supercharged Mantis, a yellow Spyder with awesome performance for a road car - the discovery in sweden of one of the ordinal Team Marcos LM500 racecars was an opportunity not to be missed. "We'd been looking at some of the former challenge cars, but when Mike found the LM500, there was no question - it had to be the one. "He and Sweeney went out to meet Erik Holmquist and view the car. "We could tell straight away that it had been a really pukka racecar. It hadn't run for quite some time. I think Erik raced it a few times in the Swedish GT, but had ended up in a gravel trap last time out and he never went near it again! Later, when we started stripping it down, we found proof - everywhere!"

Keating is evidently impressed by the way the car was originally constructed back in 1994. "It's an amazing car," he enthuses. "It's fantastically well engineered and beautifully put together." The LM500 dates from a period in Marcos history when the company was on the up, and investment from the new owner was serious enough to mean that the factory racecars enjoyed generous support. The gearboxes were a case in point. "Only two were ever made, as far as we know", says Keating. "They were designed and built specifically for the car by XTrac, with cast magnesium casings, and cost in the region of £35,000 each. Luckily XTrac still holds spares!"

The car was delivered to the team's workshops, at that time in France, and rebuilt over the winter of 2004/05. "We had quite a few issues," explains Keating. "There was far more work required than we'd been expecting, and we were late having it ready for the season. The car had arrived with carbs fitted to the Rover V8, but it was a complete animal with those things, it spat back on the downshift, and there were flames coming out through the bonnet vents! It certainly wasn't running right, so we converted back to the fuel injection, as original, and that cured most of it. The other problem we kept having was with the diff. We'd qualify well (in the VdeV) but after an hour or so the input shaft would break. We tracked that down to the mounting, which wasn't up to the job. We've now redesigned the fixing, and seem to have solved that as well."

So 2005 turned out to be a frustrating season for Keating and the LM500 (seen at Spa, above). The potential was tremendous, but rarely realised. It was enough, however, to convince him that the car could be tamed, and would be ready again.





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