LOLA SHOWCASES FACILITIES AT NATIONAL MOTORSPORT WEEK OPEN DAY
Lola Cars, the UK’s largest and most successful racing car constructor opened up its doors for a comprehensive tour of its renowned facilities this week as part of the 2007 National Motorsport Week initiative.
Now in its second year, NMW aims to introduce more people to Motorsport through a week of activities. Lola cars, past and present, engineers, drivers and the company’s owner all took time out to welcome sixty members of the public to get a rare insight in to the hi-tech world of race car design and build. Lola’s vast technical capabilities such as the on-site windtunnel, 7-post test rig and complete composites facility are commercially available meaning that access to the operations departments is very rare.
The National Motorsport Week guests began their tour by viewing the Lola Cars design office with its myriad of CAD systems running the latest version of the CATIA 5 design software. Composites design chief, Paul Rennie gave a presentation on structural design and how Lola implements FEA (Finite Element Analysis) in its designs.
Rennie also went over crash testing procedures and how Lola’s have saved several drivers in recent years from serious injury. Further tours of Lola Composites, a subsidiary of the Lola Group, and also the Technical Centre wowed the inquisitive guests with further demonstrations. Dr John Davis, formerly of the Williams and Jordan F1 teams described and then demonstrated a windtunnel run with the 50% scale, multi- million pound facility testing one of the very latest Lola models.
There was also chance for the guests to see the 7-post test rig in action and hear the full roar of the legendary Lola T70 Mk3B as it was fired up in the factory grounds. At the conclusion of the tour, interviews were conducted with Lola Executive Chairman and owner Martin Birrane and drivers Chris Buncombe and Joey Foster.
Birrane, who acquired Lola from its original founder Eric Broadley ten years ago, welcomed the throng and talked of his favourite Lola models from down the years, as well as looking to the future with new LMP, Daytona Prototype and Formula Three cars set to be unveiled before the end of the year. Lola racing drivers were also on hand with reigning Le Mans LMP2 champion Chris Buncombe and Formula Three race winner Joey Foster chatting about their careers and signing autographs. Foster is looking to continue his impressive rise up the single seater ranks after missing the start of the year due to injury while Buncombe is looking forward to this weekends Spa 1000kms where he will be in the running for more success in the Binnie Motorsports run Lola LMP2 car.
Finally, rounding out an action packed day Lola’s experienced team of assembly engineers demonstrated the commitment and skill of undertaking a pit stop on an LMP car. Guests were then invited to join in as they went against the clock to service the car with four fresh tyres. Next year will see Lola celebrate 50 years of producing race winning cars in just about every discipline of racing from Formula One to Formula Ford. As well as leading the way on the track, Lola is now a leading technology supplier to many other industries including Aerospace, Defence, Marine, Communications and Automotive.
