Procter looks forward

British star promises to start in Sweden.

After racing his old Ford Puma Supercar in the British round of the European championship at Lydden, Kevin Procter is eager to be reunited with his Ford Focus – the car currently undergoing a rebuild and update at Tony Bardy Motorsport.

At the end of last year Procter and TBM team mate Andy Scott had a joint test day at Blyton Park. The test had two objectives: to allow Scott to get used to his ex-Jos Kuypers Focus and to let each of the drivers drive the other’s car. Procter’s Focus is also ex-Kuypers, but while the Scott car is based on a Jernberg Motorsport shell and uses Sellholm transmission, Procter’s slightly older car was built by Kuypers’ team and employs an MSR transmission. Having run the two cars back-to-back, the decision was made that Procter’s car should be converted to run a Sellholm transmission system. It was already due a complete rebuild over the winter as damage caused by a crash in Hungary last summer had been repaired in a way good enough only to allow the season to be completed.

“It’s my fault that the car is late,” said Procter at Lydden, “I’ve had a lot of things going on away from racing and all my attention has been on that over the winter. I was late in giving Tony the go ahead to do all of the work and order the new parts we need, and that meant that we were down the queue when it came to getting those components. Andy’s car felt so much better than mine that I know the changes are going to make a big difference.”

Besides the obvious advantage of running two technically similar cars, Bardy explained the difference in the transmission setups: “There’s nothing wrong with the MSR transmission, I looked after it with Christopher Evans’s Opel and in Kevin’s car but it’s had no developement. Kevin has been struggling with understeer and the Sellholm setup will change that, but it’s a lot of work, new transmission tunnel, subframes, engine position…” he said.

While Procter is keen to get back into the Focus as soon as possible, Bardy, who took delivery of the repainted Focus bodyshell the day before the Lydden ERC event, reckons it will be into the summer before the car is complete. Procter, however, has his sights set firmly on July and says he will be at the Swedish event come what may. “I will definitely drive in Sweden, I’m not going to miss that for anything. I don’t care if I have to rent a car and then ride up there on a bicycle, I will be in Sweden!” he said.

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