Local interest will be running high at Knockhill next month (May 8/9) when the Avon Tyres British GT Championship roars north of the border for the third and fourth rounds of the 2010 season.
The championship's G4 class headed by Fife driver Rory Butcher and but several Scottish racers are planning to join their countryman on the grid.
They include Aberdeen father-and-son team Jim and Glynn Geddie, who will make their British GT debuts at the wheel of a Team Parker Racing 997-type Porsche in the GT Cup division of the series.
They will go head to head against Edinburgh-born Porsche driver John Gaw and his team-mate Phil Dryburgh, another Scot.
For Geddie Junior, this season is a toe-in-the-water campaign ahead of a planned assault on the top-level GT3 class of British GT, run on Sunoco Race Fuel, in 2011.
"We are here this year to learn about British GT," says 19-year-old Glynn, "and hopefully next year we will be back with the latest GT3 Porsche and challenging for the championship." BRDC “Rising Star” Geddie is dovetailing his British GT campaign with an assault on the UK Porsche Carrera Cup; last year he won that championship's Pro-Am 1 division, claiming two class victories at Knockhill along the way.
Glynn and his dad, the boss of oil services firm Apex Tubulars, have been racing team-mates in several GT series in recent seasons.
Their big challenge at Knockhill will be to dislodge the GT Cup class machine of Gaw and Dryburgh from its class leading position. Their Porsche, fielded by Production Glassfibre with Kinfaun Racing, was on superb form in Easter's opening rounds at Oulton Park, finishing 11th and eighth overall in respective races.
For Kirkaldy's Butcher – also known as “Rory the Racing Driver” – the Knockhill rounds are a real home match, and a chance for him to show the sort of form which netted the 23-year-old the Scottish Formula Ford Championship crown last year.
At Oulton, Butcher and his driving partner Benjamin Harvey scored a class win and a second-place finish in their prestigecarleasing.co.uk with ABG KTM X-Bow, and they tie for the overall class lead with Cheshire-based Speedworks Motorsport Ginetta crew Christian Dick and Jamie Stanley.
"Oulton was a great result for all of us," said Rory, "and hopefully we can use a bit of local knowledge to our advantage at Knockhill."
Championship manager Benjamin Franassovici is hopeful that some more Scottish drivers will be lured to the Knockhill grid: "We have a lot of interest in the GT Cup class from Scottish teams, so I am hopeful there will be some strong competition there."
British GT is sponsored by UK tyre manufacturer Avon Tyres and is further supported by Sunoco Racing Fuels, Anglo American Oil Company – promoter of the Sunoco Rolex 24 At Daytona Challenge – and The Independent.
