Category: Racing
2025 Race Season Round Up Having put in a lot of time and effort into pre-season testing with various trips to Donington Park, Castle Combe and Llandow, we felt we had thoroughly prepared for the 2025 season. Top of the agenda was resolving cooling issues with Jack’s XK8 that caused some issues last season. The OEM cooling clearly had its limitations, so working closely with PWR Advanced Cooling Technology whose products are used in F1, we came up with a new cooling package for the XK8. We are working with PWR…
Modifying and upgrading race cars as well as road cars takes you into some interesting territory, often with great benefits, even when you revisit a car you think you know well. This month we are going to take a further look at my X300 XJR6 that took me to the 2022 Jaguar Championship. After securing the championship, I put the car away and it’s hardly turned a wheel since. After several people told us that we were ‘barking up the wrong tree’ or just ‘barking’ and that a XJR6 would never…
Pre-season testing plays a highly important role in our preparations for racing. It’s key to getting both the car and driver dialled in for the year ahead. For Swallows Racing pre-season also has another important function. It’s the first opportunity for us to test new performance parts we have been developing over the winter. An example would be the test day we did in March at Donington Park. We have been working with a new partner to create radiators and coolers for a range of Jaguars. At Donington we were able…
Twenty-one years have passed since legendary British Touring Car Champion and race car builder Andy Rouse proudly unveiled his bold plan for the future of touring car racing in the UK. It was 2004, when Rouse took the wraps off the Jaguar X Type SCV8 at the Autosport International show with fellow series planner and business partner Pete Hall. Sadly the ‘Brave New World’ of SCV8 racing never came to fruition. The only legacy of the plan was the car itself which Rouse and Hall had ploughed a small fortune into.…
Much of what we learn through our experience in racing goes into our performance parts and upgrades. AVO dampers, coilover packages, Tarox brakes, Yokohama tyres, our own stainless-steel exhausts and racing cats, air-filters, silicone hoses and Maxx ECU’s and bespoke maps. It all gets tried and tested on our cars during the racing season. I thought it was worth looking back at our 2024 season to see what we have learned and to share some of the highs and at times the lows. After the long winter days preparing the cars…
As the racing year draws towards the climax, we look back on the highs and lows of Swallows 2024 season in the Jaguar Championship so far. After the early season ups and downs at Donington Park when we both had encouraging results and disappointments with the alternator on Jack’s XK8 and the supercharger belt on Rick’s XJR6, we worked hard to rectify the early teething problems. Late April we moved onto Oulton Park in Cheshire which is one of the most exciting and technically challenging circuits in the UK. On the…
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…
Photo credits Chris Gage and David Stallard It doesn’t seem to matter how long the winter is there is still never enough time to prepare for the new season. Last minute jobs, late nights, and long weekends, but we got there, just! A completely new car build almost, for our customer Rick Walker who has opted for a similar XJR6 to Tom’s 2022 Championship winning car. A major refresh for Andrew Maynard’s XJ40 after the big rear shunt at the last race of the season. Then there was the front end…
We swear that Snetterton in Norfolk has its own micro-climate, so often, cold, windy, wet, or foggy, but for once in the middle of September largely sunny. Over the years Snetterton has often been a happy hunting ground for the Swallows team, yielding some great results, so we travelled east for the official Friday practice with optimism. Jack was holding a narrow six-point lead in the championship, some achievement in only his second season and in a new race car. Practice went well for Jack in the XK8 and for Andrew…
You have to go back a full six years for the last time the Jaguar Saloons and GT’s raced at Croft Circuit. But that 2017 season holds some happy memories. It was the debut season for Swallows Racing, and Croft produced Tom’s first podium finish. From our home in Somerset, it is nearly a 600-mile round trip to the circuit near Darlington but it is a journey well worth making to one of the most exciting circuits in the country. With this being the first time Jack Robinson and Andrew Maynard…