Pre Season Race Car Rush
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 to test a new radiator and cooling set up on Jack’s XK8 race car. We had some small temperature issues that we weren’t happy with on his car last season. With our new partner we developed a package to overcome this. Initial signs from the test day were good, hopefully when these have been tested further, we’ll be able to roll them out as a performance upgrade for your road cars. Once we do, we’ll publish an article about them here.
I would like to say that 2025 is the best prepared that we have been going into a season, but I’m loathed to do that, as it will not doubt come back to bite me in the nether regions. So, let’s just say we have been out testing earlier and worked harder than ever to be ready. We have certainty put in a lot of work on our existing fleet of race cars, whether our own or cars we prepare for other drivers.
The X Type SCV8 that we talked about in the March magazine is still tickling along in the background with target of having it on track in the second half of the season. The view would be running it in CTCRC Thunder Saloons or the CSCC Slick Series or possibly both. Having owned this car now for three years but not having been able to run it has been frustrating so I’m itching to drive it.
Class D: Colin had his first full season in 2024 driving our XJ40 and made steady progress through the year. Colin was challenging for the class in the last few races and took it down to wire at the last race of the season at Snetterton but ultimately lost out to Charles Jackson’s X300. We wanted to give Colin an improved car for 2025 and take advantage of some regulation changes as well. We put in a lot of work over the winter making the car stronger, removing some corrosion in the ‘A’ pillar and sills. The car has also been on diet due to reg changes, we were able to remove the boot floor and replace it with aluminium plus remove all the glass apart from the front screen. The glass was replaced with racing grade polycarbonate. This gave a total weight saving of around 40kg, which should give some extra performance, at the end of the day weight is free power. Finally, we also replaced the front subframe which was starting to look a bit tired. Colin tested with us at Donington in February and posted some encouraging laps.
Class C: Having done a lot of upgrades on Andrew’s XJ40 last season the plan was only to do some winter remedial work. Andrew had a good season and had several class podiums in the largest class on the grid. He ended the season a very strong third in class with a very reliable car. The main issues to address were the differential, which was well worn by the season end, similarly we also needed to replace the steering rack and deal with a persistent brake vibration after the change to the pedal box set up. We replaced the diff and rack and refreshed several brake components before testing at Donington in February. Brake issues can often be the hardest to resolve as you can only replicate them on track. Sadly, we still had serious vibration at Donington we finally decided to move away from the callipers that the car came with and upgrading these along with Tarox discs with floating bells. Testing and bedding in new pads at Llandow circuit thankfully found the issues resolved.
Damien’s XJ40 has too had some worn components that needed refreshing including brake parts, but little else. The car was reliable last season and gave Damien so strong class finishes so he was happy to largely maintain the status quo. We had a useful test at Castle Combe with Damien in March and a chance to bed in his brakes.
Our final Class C car is our own XJS which Tom proved with three class wins from four starts at the end of last season. This year we have hired the car out as an ‘Arrive & Drive’ package, both for racing and occasional track days. We tested with Tristan and his son Will at Castle Combe in November. They were out again at Silverstone in February testing before successfully making their racing debuts there in CSCC Modern Classics in March. They made strong progress throughout the day and showed they have good potential as drivers with the car performing “Perfectly”.
The XJS was out again for testing at Donington in March with another driver xxxxxxxxx who at the time of writing is scheduled to drive the car in the first Jaguar Championship round at this circuit in April.
Class B, Jack’s XK8 is currently the only car in this class that we are running in the Jag championship. As detailed above it has improved cooling, and we have tweaked the brake set up, to eliminate some pad ‘knock off’. Having had two successful days testing at Donington we were very happy with car. We made a fair number of changes to the car last season, and it took a while to get the reliability we had the previous year, by the end of the season it was performing well and finished with two outright wins at Snetterton in the final round.
In Class A, it was a bit of a up and down season with Rick’s XJR6, as is often the case with new race cars that need some development to get them right. We had some issues supercharger belts. Over the winter we have been able to fully diagnose the issues and are feeling confident that the car will prove more reliable this year.
Having completed seven days of testing and a race weekend before April we feel as ready as we can be for 2025.
