February 10
A press announcement was released today by Paul Lawrence, the Powertour Press Officer. It went as follows: -

Synchro gears up for National Saloons challenge

Synchro Motorsport has announced plans for its most ambitious season to date in the Silverstone Insurance National Saloon Championship. The team is completely made up of employees at the Honda plant in Swindon and will be fielding a pair of five-door Honda Civic VTis for regular drivers Dave Allan and Kevin Hicks. These news cars are currently being built in readiness for the coming season and the team is confident that the latest specification cars will represent a significant improvement over the 1999 cars.

"The 1999 cars were over-weight due to bodyshell constraints. We have managed to reduce weight considerably from all areas and added 30% more rigidity to the bodyshell. They are completely revised cars with new engines producing more power and torque," says Allan. "There will be very few parts carried over from last year and we believe the cars will be far more competitive."

Allan will, however, be forced to miss the opening race of the season due to work commitments in Japan and his place for that race will be taken by experienced saloon racer Bill Stilwell, a former champion in a Honda Civic. Alongside the pair of cars for the National Saloon Championship, the Synchro team is also building a third Civic to be used by the three drivers in the classic 24-hour races at Spa-Francorchamps and the Nurburgring. The National Saloon 2000 cars will make their race debut at the team's local circuit of Thruxton (Hampshire) during the opening round of PowerTour on Sunday 26 March.