Swallows Championship Winning Season Review
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 to roll out road car cooling packages in the near future.
Jack came so close to the championship title in 2023, we wanted to make real concerted effort to get him over the line in the 2025 championship. Reliability therefore was all important and failure wasn’t an option!
The other gremlin that had given Jack some issues previously was ‘brake pad knock off’ also sometimes known as brake ‘knockback’. It can be an issue that is common with high performance race cars. It is caused by cornering forces and suspension deflection with the brake pads pushing back effectively creating extra clearance from the disc. Pistons are pushed back into the caliper bores and when the suspension returns to a more natural the pistons don’t always return quickly enough. It results in longer pedal travel, not desirable at racing speeds! It’s not a phenomenon that is experienced in road cars often, due to the much high G-forces in race cars it can be an issue. For the 2025 season we worked with brake partners at Tarox to solve this on Jack’s car.
With the two main issues on Jack’s XK8 from the 2024 season resolved, we were confident that he had an excellent shot at the title. In mid-April we got the season underway at Donington Park on the longer GP Circuit. All the pre-season hard work looked like it had paid off when Jack claimed pole with a stunning 1:46.7 lap, almost three seconds clear of his nearest challenger. He duly converted pole into two wins in the opening two races for the best possible start to the season.
At Donington we also rolled out for the first time Andrew Maynard’s newly acquired XFR-S race car. The car had been originally built in 2012 for racing at the Nürburgring 24 Hours and had limited running in recent years. A shakedown at Llandow had shown the car to be good working order and a thorough check over prior to Donington and the XF seemed fine. On race day we had a decent qualifying putting the car 18th in the CSCC Slick Series and 3rd in class amongst a pack of BMW E46 M3 cars and even a head of a Ferrari 360 Challenge car and a Lamborghini Hurricane Super Trofaeo. As a comparison the XF was 3.5 seconds quicker than Jack’s XK8 pole lap.
The race didn’t go quite as well, it started okay, until Andrew doing the first stint in the car got hit by a Ginetta G55 GT4 car at the Melbourne Loop. It caused damage to the passenger door, but not enough to withdraw the car. Andrew handed over to Tom who was making good progress with lap times dropping until the clutch failed on lap 13, unlucky for the team!
Cadwell Park isn’t a circuit that we race too often but it is one of our favourites. Running our ‘Arrive and Drive’ XJS in the CSCC Modern Classics proved fruitful with Tom and Jack collecting a class win. At Donington the XJ had a successful event with Nigel Stoate driving it in both the Modern Classics and the Jaguar Championship. Tom then took it to two podiums here with a second and third overall in the championship and ahead of some considerably more powerful cars. Jack once again took pole 2.5 seconds ahead of Tom and 3.3 seconds ahead of the rest of the field before converting pole into two more race wins, for a hundred percent start to the season and faultless running from the XK8.
The third race weekend of the season saw us at Silverstone National Circuit in June. This circuit is largely about power and the XK8 was less suited to it than some other cars, nevertheless Jack still achieved pole albeit by four tenths of a second. A temperature sensor failure in race one, caused a frustrating DNF. Starting from the back of the grid in race two Jack managed to work his way up to finish third despite a spin and also collecting fastest lap. In the hands of Mike Seabourne our XJS achieved another class win in race one while our Class D XJ40 kept its hundred percent record driven by Colin.
Early July at Snetterton and it was the first opportunity for us to run the F Type that we purchased and tested at Donington earlier in the season. Practice on Friday had seen higher track temperatures, but early in the day we managed to match the times from the Newbarn race team who had previously owned the car. Racing in the CSCC Slick Series we did achieve 9th overall and 2nd in class, but most of all we learnt a lot about the car. The following day and in wet conditions the qualifying session didn’t go exactly to plan when Jack had a minor off meaning he qualified just 3rd. He did manage to improve on a track that was drying towards the end of the race to finish 2nd. A very heavy downpour before race two made for tricky conditions again but Jack mastered these to bring the XK8 home first.
Jack leading the championship in the XK8 and moving to ‘home turf’ at Castle Combe at the beginning of August was a good feeling. Castle Combe also gave a us another chance to run Andrew’s XFR-S in the CSCC Slick Series. Qulifying 9th overall and 1st in class Andrew and Tom achieved a decent lap time before managing to hold the position and the class during the race. There’s certainly more potential to be had from the car if some understeer can be dialled out by fitting our own damper set-up. Despite the home race Jack had to be on top form to qualify on pole, which he did by 1.1 seconds and then went even faster to claim the win in race one. He repeated the performance in race two and in doing so tightened the grip on the championship. In our class D car Colin enjoyed a home race claiming his first ever top ten finish in race two with 9th overall.
At the end of August the CSCC Jaguar Championship was run at the Brands Brittania meeting, a real festival of British cars and racing. Several of our championship rivals have a history of being quick at the Kent circuit. To get into the groove Jack shared an outing in the XJ40 in the Modern Classics with Colin. Colin also benefiting from learning off Jack’s data ready for the Jag race. In Jaguar Championship qualifying it was a tight affair, but Jack made it five from six in collecting pole by just a tenth and a half. Matthew Davis the MD of Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust also returned to racing after a two-year break in our XJS. Jack converted his pole into the race win in the first outing but couldn’t repeat it in race two when the reverse grid draw put him P5 on row three. He did however make the best of it coming through to finish second.
With the championship all but confirmed the final outing of the season was at Thruxton, the UK’s fastest circuit and one where we’ve had great success in the past. Jack wasn’t easing off and put the XK8 again on pole. The first race was dry, and Jack was able to drive a controlled race from the front and claim a fairly comfortable victory. Race two was wet and required Jack to again be at his best when having to start 5th due to the reverse grid draw. Running second when the safety car was deployed at the restart Jack was able to take the lead which he held to the chequered flag. Both Jack and the XK8 had been impeccable throughout the season, and the celebrations could begin. We weren’t totally done with Thruxton and following day Jack and Tom ventured out in the XK8 again this time in the Modern Classics. Qualifying 3rd and 1st in class, Tom made a great start in the race and moved up to second pushing the leader to over rev their engine which failed. Tom now leading handed to Jack mid-way, but their pit stop was a faction of a second under the min 1:30 requiring Jack to pit from the lead for a drive through penalty. Despite this Jack held onto third overall and an excellent 1st in class, a wonderful note to end a successful season.
