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DOWN THE WITH BARRY SIME

He did well in karting “I did a few years of karting and won the Scottish championship a few times and was a frontrunner in the British Super 1 Championship. In 1996 I did the Slick 50 Formula Ford test day at Silverstone and Paul Stewart was very helpful to me in finding some budget.”

He got as far as Formula Renault “We did some Formula Ford and then the XR2 Championship in 1999, then back to Formula Ford with Team JLR. I tried to make the transition to Formula Renault but money was always a challenge. At the same time, my dad and I worked with Team Firstair in the Clio championship. Then we set up shop as a Clio team and did that for a few years. But I had to take a step back from racing.”

They restored the Mini “Since then we’ve been involved in Ginettas and I do a lot of instructing at Croft. But we had the Mini under a tarpaulin at the back of the garage. It was last raced in 1970 and about three years ago we started rebuilding it to FIA historic specification.”

“We both got our licences back again and this is our debut year with the Mini and we’ve done four events so far. It has been great and we’ve done U2TC, the Mini Festival and Historic Racing Saloons. We’ve been there or thereabouts and we both won the class at Croft with the HSCC.”

They hope to race in Europe “We’ll do more next year and the choice to build an FIA car so we can race in Europe. There is a bit more time, money and effort involved, but we’d like to do some European races. An invitation to Goodwood would be amazing if it came and I’m sure we could find a fast Scottish co-driver!”