Championship Development..
In the hurly burly of running a Jaguar business sometimes it is difficult to step back and take stock of where you are and where you came from. I thought in the context of ‘Mods & Upgrades’ it might be interesting to do that, take a step back and look at where our performance parts have come from and where we are heading with them.
Swallows Independent Jaguar Specialists like the club celebrates its 40th Anniversary this year. Our Swallows Racing brand however was born from our love of motorsports in 2016 and our belief that there was a market for performance parts for Jaguars. At the time there was little choice if you were a Jaguar owner wanting to make upgrades to your car. Making a comparison to say, BMW where off the shelf performance parts are easy to find. Looking back, it was a bit of a leap of faith to take route that we did with Swallows Racing but it is one that we believe has paid off.
Our philosophy with our SR performance parts was always to prove them in the tuff environment of circuit racing. If they could stand up to the rigours of racing, then they should cope with road use. So far in this series we have written about, brakes, dampers, bushes, tyres, exhausts, air-filters, mapping, hoses, and we have also looked at case studies where we have brought these components together such as on the Meguiar’s S Type R, and our Palmer XKR. Going back to the heart of what we are doing and where the SR brand came from is our motorsport and the constant drive to improve results on the track and in the quality of the parts we create.
My XJR6 race car was very much an evolution from when we started building it in the winter of 2016 and then taking it racing in 2017. Each season we refined and improved the car either by manufacturing and fabricating bespoke parts or working with suppliers to create what we needed with future road use for the parts in mind at the same time. It culminated with us winning the championship in 2022 having come close the previous year.
When my brother Jack decided to go racing as well in 2022, he first learned his race craft in the ‘standard’ class driving an older XJ40 race car, a more sensible approach than diving in headfirst with an XJR6! In the winter of 2022/2023, we built him an XK8 race car from the ‘ground up’ using a lot of the knowledge we had accumulated in the previous five years with my XJR6. The XK8 was built using a ‘stock’ engine with emphasis on creating a car that handled and stopped well rather than focusing on power. Our work with our performance suppliers, Tarox (brakes), AVO (dampers), Pipercross (air-filters), our own SR manifold and exhaust, and Maxx ECU supplied with tuning by our partner Steve at PVE all came together in a really neatly packaged XK8. Built in just three months it was ready for testing and to go racing in March 2023. The car showcased our performance parts even down to our own SR silicone hoses.
From our times in testing, we knew we had built a competitive car, but the acid test is always racing. You can imagine our delight then when Jack took pole position in the first
race of the season at Silverstone on the GP circuit. Jack went on to tie on points for the championship only loosing out ultimately on class wins.
The winter offers you a four month break from racing, a narrow window to evaluate the season gone and to plan for the one ahead. It is also a period where regulation changes happen and in the case of the Jaguar Championship a major shift moving from the Classic Touring Car Racing Club back to more familiar ground with the Classic Sports Car Club. This brought about a big change in the class structure with supercharged cars going into a class of their own, Class A and Jack’s car going from Class C to Class B along with much more powerful cars including 6.0 V12 XJS’s.
Having taken time out in 2023 to support Jack’s championship push, I was keen to get back out racing in 2024. The FIA and MSUK who govern motorsport are rightly always looking at ways to make the sport safer. The regulations for roll cages are one of the things that they recently updated, and this was an area where my XJR6 needed some attention. We decided that a much stronger cage was needed, this not only improves safety but has the benefit of making the car stiffer, something that can improve handling. Having stripped the old cage out we noticed that the 1995 shell was showing her age having spent the previous five years battling around the circuits of the UK. This meant a serious amount of welding and grinding to put strength back into the shell before the cage was fitted. To fabricate the cage, we first created a 3D scan of the car before cad-designing the cage. The main area of difference from the previous cage is having tubing running directly down the A-pillar and extending through the bulkhead and to the front suspension turrets as well as more protection in the roof area. What was going to be simply old cage out and new cage in has now turned into a major refresh for the XJR6 including new livery. This however offers us the opportunity to reassess the parts and improve the geometry of the car. Hopefully we can get it bolt all back together soon for me to race the second half of the season.
To make Jack’s car competitive in the new Class B he was going to need some more power, starting with some work on the heads and cams, this also shifts the power and torque curves peaking more where you need the power on track, so behaving more like a race engine and less like a road car. We built a great handling car for Jack which so far has allowed him to compete with much more powerful cars. It means he can carry more speed and gives better exits from corners. Our feeling is that there is still more to be had from the chassis and AVO suspension, critically getting the geometry to the best possible level, this is our area of focus as we progress through the season now with Jack’s car.
As we learn and accumulate knowledge through racing it helps us to refine and create our performance products and packages. We are already working on some exciting developments for our parts and products for road cars, with hopefully some news coming soon.
