John George: Back for more

Wed 25th March 2009 John George could have been forgiven for losing his appetite for racing after his huge shunt at Brands Hatch at the end of last season, but it seems that is not the case, as we found out when we spoke to him ahead of his third straight year in the BTCC.

“I was a little bit put off for a few days, but now I’m fine again”, said the Cornishman when questioned about his hefty crash. “It’s all good now, thanks.”

On the crash itself, George says, “There were two SEATs behind me. They started from the back. I don’t know how long it took them to get past the cars behind me, but by corner two I had two of them all over me and I wasn’t going to let them past. I think we all know I’m not going to let them past. Darren was off on the grass on one side and I was attacking Jason on the other, and that’s motorsport really, isn’t it. That’s the way it goes.”

George and the TH Motorsport team have a new car for the new season, but there’s something very familiar about it. It’s a Honda Integra, juts like the one he drove last season. Only this one belonged to Dave Pinkney until a couple of weeks ago.

“We only got it on Thursday”, George said at the Rockingham media day. “So this will be the first time it’s been driven in anger since 2006 It’s going to be a bit of a learning curve, and we’ll see what falls off it.”

When he’s not racing, John George runs a mobile phone business (www.jagmobiles.co.uk). And splitting his time between Cornwall and Guernsey, he’s not exactly local to any of the circuits the BTCC races at. So why exactly does John George keep coming back for more?

“It’s awesome. It’s THE championship to drive in. You can go and drive in Clios and do relatively well, but just to be here is great. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it don’t go so well.

“Last season we all thought was a bit disappointing. We went much faster and just seemed to arrive at the accidents much quicker, so that was a real shame. The first season, we had some good results, a couple of pole positions, it was awesome. Last year it just went a bit wrong and the end of the season just capped it all. Destroying the car was not good news for anybody.”

The Honda Integra was a hugely successful car in the hands of Matt Neal and Team Dynamics, but the challenges for a much smaller team like TH Motorsport are considerable.

“Last season we did finally get to the bottom of our gearbox issues. Our problem is we never have the budget that Dynamics did. When the gearbox had a problem, they just replaced everything, all the time. So it kept falling over on us, giving us problems. We think maybe we’ve got some of that fixed now. Fingers crossed, we hope we have.”

George uses the BTCC as a way of promoting his business and you might think that as he’s the boss, he hasn’t struggled to secure sponsorship this year in the same way that some others have. However, that could not be further from the truth.

“JAG actually went into administration in January. We had to make a management buyout rescue package for it, so it really has been tough. We’re running on less than half of last year’s budget, so we’re going to have to be sensible and keep it out of the walls. I just can’t afford repair bills. We’ve got a few sponsors on board, but we really need some more. We’re going to try and drum up some more West Country sponsors. Of course I also live in Guernsey and they give all their money to Andy [Priaulx] so I’ve got no hope there!

“We always bring a lot of staff along. You’ll see people dotted around in the team gear. It’s good PR, it’s publicity. But trying to quantify that is always very difficult. I’d like to quantify it with about a £1million of budget that would take us all the way down there somewhere.”

With that he points towards the far end of the pitlane where the like of VX Racing can be found.

The car may have arrived just a couple of weeks before the season starts, but that’s all part of the challenge for John and the team. Indeed, life at this end of the pitlane is filled with obstacles that have to be overcome. But it’s the hope of finding a way through (or round, or over) them that drives these teams on.

“If we scored more points than we did in 2007 and if we could take advantage of a couple of reverse grids, that would be great”, said George ahead of the new season. “I’d really like – with the slightly quicker pace that we’ve started to run – if we could run from pole with that, then maybe we could stay out of trouble and stay there.”

We Brits do like to get behind an underdog...