Rick Kerry:
Unless I had won the lottery, I wouldn’t have thought I’d have the budget to do British Touring Cars. We were a bit taken aback with the interest from people who want to be involved with touring cars and speaking to sponsors who are aware of things like the TV figures, they were keener to talk about bigger numbers than we had done before. We tried the water after we got the initial phone call and suddenly we had a reasonable amount towards a budget. I’d always looked at the BTCC and thought that if someone asked me where I wanted to race, then it would be there, but I never thought I’d get the chance.
Q:
As you mentioned at the start, the plan is to run with West Suffolk Racing. What can you tell us about the team?
Rick Kerry:
Derek Butcher from West Suffolk Racing has been running cars in the Kumho’s, in Dutch Supercars and I think in Britcar in the past. He has been going for about 20 years and is a
BMW specialist. He ran my M5 and built my last car that I won the championship with from scratch. I have an excellent relationship with then and a good understanding when it comes to things like suspension set-up and for me to progress, he is one of the reasons why I won a championship and I hope it is something we can do again together. He probably has to go through a bit of a change with his business in order to gear up to this kind of thing but I’ll have to do the same with my driving.
Q:
It’s a tough question to answer at the moment with the car yet to be completed, but when you get it out on track, what kind of level of performance are you expecting?
Rick Kerry:
Talking to BMW Motorsport, in 24 hour spec they think that the car is about a second a lap slower than the World Touring Cars. Knowing that we are going to bring it up to sprint specification, we are hoping that we can close that gap and I think the rest of it is down to whether or not I can peddle it fast enough. We do we think we have a car that, in the right hands and with enough time in the seat, we can get into the top ten regularly.
Q:
Do you think people might watch you with an interest in using the 1 Series themselves when they might previously have looked elsewhere?
Rick Kerry:
I think possibly in the UK. I know there have a series in Germany and I think that bringing it to this country, there might be people who will start to look at it. A lot of it is down to how we perform on the track and whether they will be interested in having a go themselves.
Q:
Do you also feel you might get a bit of a following from fans because you’ve gone for something different?
Rick Kerry:
We hope so. Because I’ve not raced British Touring Cars before and I’m not that well known, I probably have to look for something a little bit different. At my age, I have to try and hit the ground running and try to compete as quickly as I can as I wouldn’t say I have time on my side. It will be different and being a 1 Series I think there will be a bit of a novelty value as the first one to run in the country.
