After an epic journey down the M1 and M25 on Friday afternoon (5 hours in Bank Holiday traffic, how dedicated are we?!) the hospitality unit and support vehicle made camp in readiness for an early start on Saturday. The forecast was for rain and we were all prepared for it but the day started off quite nicely!

Track conditions for qualifying were bright and dry for the 1.19 miles of the Indy circuit. Our XK looked awesome coming through Clearways and Clark Curve from our viewing point on Brabham Straight. The session went well once again with no traffic or yellow flags; driving standards were very good. The car handled fantastically and with a 58.4sec lap Jim was 6th on the grid for the race.

Thank you to Alex Cleland for the use of his photographs.

Grey clouds loomed as race time approached and we donned the macs! For the race we watched from the bottom of Paddock Hill Bend to see the cars come round and down the first corner going up Hailwood Hill into Druids Bend. This was where Jim was held up on the first lap and lost a place. Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone in particular for us to “race” against for the 40 minute race, with Jim being over 2.5 seconds quicker than the nearest XK120 and over a second slower than the first four cars (an AC Cobra, Lotus Elan 26R, Jaguar E-Type and Corvette Stingray). A pitstop window meant that everyone had to come in and during this stage Jim was even P1! After his stop though he was back in 7th place and with no need to push he cruised to the end to finish in the same position.

A soggy Tester camp came away from Kent happy with the day’s events. The rain made the race .. interesting and our ‘Louise’ (that’s our XK’s name for new readers!) handled supremely in conditions that were completely new to her.

Thanks to the Tester Team, all at Brands Hatch, the marshalls and The Master’s Team for a great weekend.

Claire Tester

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Preparations for the Silverstone Classic last week were .. interesting!   We were due to race our 1953 Jaguar XK120 in The Daily Express Trophy for Production Jaguar Cars and at the last minute we were unable to get parts completed on the race engine.  At the last minute, our good friend Roger Ludgate came to the rescue and loaned us his engine!  Jim immediately got to work fitting it but unfortunately not quite in time for Thursday’s testing.

We made our way to the circuit on Friday morning and set out our stall in the paddock marquees.  We were opposite the Ferrari and Honda NSX display areas and just across the road from the Jaguar zone.  We had a leisurely sign on at 1.00pm and then the car was scrutineered at 4.00pm.  We had a slight issue over the rear bulkhead not completely separating the driver from the reinforced fuel pipe going into the tank, but the official allowed us to go out to qualify on the proviso we had extra reinforcement before the race.

Qualifying was at 5.40pm and Jim was feeling pretty chilled considerating we hadn’t tested the car!  Conditions were cloudy but dry on Silverstone’s Historic GP circuit however the session was a bit difficult with traffic and Jim didn’t get full clear laps.  He still managed a very respectable 5th place on the grid with a time of 2:25.936.

Friday evening was all about relaxing and having a good time and we certainly did that!  With the loan of an awesome motorhome, courtesy of the 2008 British Ginetta Champion Dino Zamparelli, we camped in comfort and style and enjoyed barbecues and the Pussycat Dolls in concert.  Luckily we weren’t needed too early on Saturday morning!

A sunny raceday began by solving our issue with the fuel line.  The concern was that should the fuel line split there was no “back up” to stop fuel spilling onto the driver.  This was easily rectified by inserting an aluminium tube into the reinforced fuel line.  With our signed scrutineered sticker on display we were able to complete our regular spanner checks and fuel her up.  Then we headed once again to the assembly area.

From this point in, Jim was head down getting into ‘the zone’; Iain, Loz and our fantastic support team were soaking in the atmosphere; family and friends had located their favourite viewing spots and me?  Well, I was a bag of nerves reminding myself every now and then to breathe (regular readers will notice a pattern here!).

Jim then disappeared from view down the pitlane.  A rolling start got the race underway and pole sitter Darren McWhirter from Scotland took the lead and kept it through to the end.  Jim immediately made up one place in what turned out to be an incredibly exciting 25 minute race.  There were a couple of spinners and the safety car was required when Dave Coynes’ XK120 caught fire.  By this time Jim was third and he and Nigel Webb certainly gave the crowd a good race dicing closely for second.  On the last lap, Jim overtook Nigel coming out of Bridge and kept the place through to the chequered flag, just 3.4 seconds behind the winner.  Fantastic!

Pat Quinn, daughter of Sir William Lyons the founder of Jaguar Cars, presented McWhirter with the winner’s trophy and our top three then threw some perfectly good champagne over each other!

After the race Jim said “I am so pleased with my second place.  At the beginning of the week it was hit and miss whether we would be able to compete as my proper race engine was not going to have certain parts back from machinists in time.  I was able to borrow an engine which was 100 horsepower lower than my own so I was just hoping for a top ten finish.  It wasn’t until we were heading for the assembly area before the race that the owner of the engine told me it had been under his workbench and not run for 11 years!”

Jim’s father, Jim Tester Senior, was well known for his work tuning and preparing Jaguar XK’s and an emotional result was emphasised with the top three cars of the race all originating from the Tester stable from one era or another.

We had a fabulous weekend; were you rockin’ and racin’ at Silverstone?  What was your favourite bit of action?  Let us know!  If you did miss all the fun on the track it’s being replayed on Motors TV over the coming weeks so be sure to catch it!

Claire Tester

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We love the stuff and right now are like the proverbial pigs in muck! One of our favourite cars is the Jaguar Lightweight E-Type and in particular the Briggs Cunningham cars.

Cunningham, an American car collector, first entered the Le Mans race in 1950 in a special-bodied Cadillac and a year later embarked on a production run of cars in his own factory to qualify as a manufacturer with the FIA. Cunningham’s best finish was fourth in 1952, while the best year for the team was 1954 when cars finished third and fifth. The last year that Cunningham’s featured at Le Mans was 1956; this was also the year that Cunningham first ran a Jaguar at Le Sarthe.

In 1960 Cunningham made an unsuccessful return to Le Mans, this time with Corvettes and one Jaguar, the E2A prototype. It was in 1963, when the iconic blue stripes appeared on three Lightweights entered by Cunningham but sadly success was still out of reach.

These three cars (5114 WK, 5115 WK and 5116 WK) have helped to shape Jim Tester as they have been a part of his life since childhood and, to come full circle, are the “muck” us pigs are surrounded by today!

In the mid 1980’s Jim Senior (in the first incarnation of Tester Engineering) worked on 5114 WK from his Scottish base. The car, then owned by Campbell McLaren, was notoriously unreliable and was re-built and run at tracks like Knockhill and Nurburgring.

Here’s a seven year old Jim Jnr out in the workshop learning his craft!

Today’s Tester Engineering is now recreating these beauties for a valued customer and Jim’s experience with his father is helping to make sure every detail is taken into account.  This particular car has re-built for the customer and modified to Leightweight specification with certain aluminium bodywork parts, racing suspension geometry and lightweight aluminium high efficiency water radiator and header tank .. to name but a few modifications!

Both Jim’s lost count a long time ago of all the cars they worked on and its this experience that can be yours if you bring your classic cars (be they road or race, Jim has seen them) to Tester Engineering.

Jim with 2009 recreation of the beautiful Jaguar Lightweight E-Type

The car we are currently building is but hours away from completion now and will then hit the track day scene to hone the ride and engine sounds.

Is this the ultimate E-Type?  Tell us what you think in the comments below!

If you’ve got a classic car that you would love to turn into your dream racer contact us at Tester Engineering on 01327 315048.

If you would like to win the chance to come along to a weekend of racing with Team Tester

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• Enter your email address below.
• You will recieve a confirmation email
• Click on the confirmation link in that email and your entered.

Team Tester’s own timing had driver Jim Tester posting about 2.27min around the track with the likes of the Aston Martin GT Prototype Project 212 car about 2.16.  However the awesome Group C cars, including the Silk Cut Jaguar XJR-9LM (winner of the 1988 Le Mans) driven by Andy Wallace, we clocked at anywhere between 1.58 and 2.03min!

Team Tester were due to give the media a thrill in the XK120 but sadly a vibration on the car meant she had to be pulled out of the rest of the day.

All that was left to do with the day was ogle the rest of the cars out on display ~ take a look at the snaps in the gallery!

We know which cars we can’t wait to see rockin’ and racin’ at the event .. how about you?

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Well, we took the car down on the Friday to test and so that I could get a feel for the circuit as it was my first time round there. The car behaved well and we got some very respectable times in. Then on the Saturday morning when we arrived at the circuit we had an oil leak, which we rectified with a minute to spare before qualifying! The first half of the session went well, the second half was dogged with yellow flags because of spinners. We got a 60.** lap in which got us third on the track. When the race came round something just didn’t feel quite right. We were held on the grid when the pole sitter stalled and couldn’t re-start his car. At the end of the first lap I’d lost about four or five places as I had no acceleration and then as I came out of Surtees corner I heard the engine go. It was hugely disappointing not to finish the race but we have to take a really good qualifying performance away as a positive and say a huge thank you to all the crew who attended and worked brilliantly together.

What’s next for the engine and car?

The engine is being rebuilt as we speak. We were really lucky in that I’d felt it go and stopped immediately so the damage is not as bad as one would think. We will get the engine done and back in the car, although I’m very sad that due to time constraints and customer’s work we have in, I probably won’t get back on the track with the XK until the 2009 season.
What happens at Tester Engineering while you are working on the XK?

Although the XK is the company’s show piece, a lot of the work done on her is in my own time so customer’s work and projects are still in progress during the working week.
Tell us a little about your background and how Tester Engineering came about..

Originally, Tester Engineering was a company my father started. He was renowned for his work and in particular with the Jaguar and XK marque. When I came along I spent every waking moment with my Dad and watched and learnt with the plan that I would work alongside him when I left school. When he passed away, instead I left Scotland, where I grew up, to work with an old family friend Malcolm Green at Mendel Autosport. Malc had taught me to weld and I worked as a fabricator with him making Formula One show cars. From there I went to work at Sporting and Historic Race Engineers, not only as a fabricator but also working on and running a variety of prestigious Ferrari’s and Aston Martin’s. We travelled all over Europe on events such as the Ferrari Challenge, Mille Miglia and the Historic Le Mans. After a family bereavement, my wife and I decided that life was too short to waste and I left S&H to set up Tester Engineering. We had talked about our own business for quite a while and took the bull by the horns and just did it! I have always wanted to start a next generation Tester Engineering and develop what my Dad had started and I’m really pleased that I have that opportunity now.

What has been the highlight of Tester Engineering so far?

I am extremely proud that customers entrust me with their cars, especially the very prestigious Aston Martin DBR1 and Ferrari P3 for example. Its also very rewarding knowing you’ve played a part, however small, in helping customers achieve their goals such as Fortec Motorsport winning two championships.

What is the future of Tester Engineering?

This year and next year will see us really pushing Tester Engineering forward. As well as continuing to work with our current customers, we are looking to expand the products we currently offer to the Formula racing; to further the historic side of the business with the re-builds and cars we have for sale and build on our customer base. We will be continuing to support our client’s and their racing and of course fit my own racing somewhere in there!

The Silverstone Classic kicks of its build up on 6th May with a special press day.

The Tester XK has been tuned to within an inch of its life ready to transport journalists around the track at scary speeds.

The 24th, 25th and 26th July are the dates for the 2009 Silverstone Classic –3 days of Music and Racing. The Classic is a perfect blend of rare cars, tasty food, great people, international music acts and world class motor racing with classic cars from the last 90 years.

Im not sure about the Pussycat Dolls, Blue and Santana being on the same bill for the music side, but im sure the cars will be awesome.

So you’re furiously crossing off days on your calendar until your next race and the car is sitting in the garage waiting. What should you do to make sure it’s ready? In an ideal world we would strip down the car, re-build it, dyno the engine and go testing before the next race but for those of us without McLaren size budgets or the army of people working on the car, here’s a good checklist to get you ready for the track.

• Change the oil and filter – check the oil for any shrapnel, which may indicate signs of heavy engine wear or potential problems
• Check and service gaps in your ignition system, whether it is points or an electric system. Re-adjust them following your manufacturer’s guidelines
• Check coolant levels and check the radiator for stone chips or damage, which could cause a leak or overheating
• Check brake pads and discs for wear and check brake fluid levels. A cursory bleed of the system is a good idea to check no air has got in
• Put the fuel pumps on to make sure there are no leaks
• Check tyres for damage, slow leaks or wear
• Grease any available bearings, grease nipples and steering joints
• Check your fire extinguisher is fully charged and up to date
• Lastly a full spanner check to make sure all your nuts and bolts are good

These are the basic checks that we carry out. What’s on your checklist?

Oh, and don’t forget to come and find us at the Silverstone Classic! If you’ve not got your tickets yet why not subscribe to our newsletters and put yourself in with a chance of winning tickets and being our VIP guests for the weekend?

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Pictures of the days event will be posted here later.