March 6
A further press announcement was released today by Paul Lawrence, the Powertour Press Officer. It went as follows: -

Honda employees take on National Saloon aces

For a group of Honda employees, Sunday 26 March is a pretty important date. All through the winter, the guys from Swindon have been working flat out in every spare moment to prepare two racing versions of the Honda Civic VTi for the Silverstone Insurance National Saloon Championship. At the end of the month drivers David Allan and Kevin Hicks will face the might of professional teams racing cars from Ford, Alfa Romeo, Peugeot and Nissan. To add to the pressure on them, the opening race of the season is close to home at the dauntingly fast Thruxton circuit near Andover.

The National Saloon Championship is one of three headline races within the innovative PowerTour motorsport show and the team, known as Synchro Motorsport, aims to compete with the big guns. Synchro is a team run by engineers from the Honda UK Manufacturing plant in Swindon and is unique in British motor racing. "It is open to everybody who works in the plant. Anyone can come along and take some active role in the team. It's like a recreational activity," explains Allan. However, this form of recreation demands enormous commitment from every member of the team, not just the two drivers.

"We have to be fully committed, working every evening and weekends on the cars. At this time of the year we're in the workshops every day. Our standard working day ends at 4.30pm and then we go to the workshop and probably leave at about 8pm," says engineer Paul Smith. "This is a past-time and we've all got to enjoy it. It does get a bit stressful at times, but we've got to have a good time as well. No one is getting paid to do this," adds Allan.

Traditional motorsport images of drivers having a jet-set lifestyle and teams doing all the work are quickly dispelled by the men at Honda. "Whenever the guys are in the workshop, so are we. As drivers, we've got a good understanding of the car, unlike some drivers who just turn up and drive the car," says Allan.

"We are a part time team and we must keep our activities on motor sport separate from our work," continues Allan. "We all work a full day and then start on the race team in the evenings and weekends." "It has to be an obsession really to put in that amount of time," adds chassis engineer Andy Scott. Typically, around 10 people form the core of the team.

However, if any one of the 3500 employees at the Honda plant feels that they want to get involved in the team, then the opportunity is there. Potentially, the route to actually racing the cars is also open as Allan explains: "Anyone who puts a year's commitment into the team and shows that they want to become a driver can do that. It is open to everyone if they really want to do it. But the people who do a year in the team tend to recognise how competitive it is in National Saloons and how committed you've got to be."

Indeed, such is the strength of the National Saloon Championship that even scoring top ten finishes is going to be tough in 2000 and the Synchro lads are well aware of the size of the challenge awaiting them. The pair of racing Civics that Allan and Hicks will drive represent many man hours of graft. "This year we've tried to develop everything in house. That's part of the learning process and over the years we've done more and more, because we are here to learn. That's one of the main objectives of the team," says Smith.

While Allan and Hicks are out on the track competing in fast and furious races, the other members of the team relish the technical challenge of motor racing. "We get a lot of satisfaction from an engineer's point of view by improving the car and making it quicker," says Smith. For every member of this hard-working team, the opening race of the season at Thruxton on 26 March is going to be a nerve-wracking occasion.