Interviews From The Paul Ricard Paddock #5

Curtis Racing Technologies

One team at Paul Ricard making less noise than it might have a right to is Curtis Racing Technologies. This British squad has an admirable “against the odds” feel to it, as well as being a genuine family-run enterprise. Team principal Mike Sweeney admits that, even just a few days ago, the chances of the car being at Paul Ricard looked slim, but with the determination of a dedicated crew and a remarkable level of support from Oreca themselves, the #42 Formula Le Mans (now termed LMPC) will take to the track in this weekend’s race with a very real chance of success.

Looking at the car, and around the garage, the first question that springs to mind is, who’s “Curtis”. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence of a sponsor’s logo that might fit the bill, and discrete enquiries confirmed that there’s no-one of that name directly involved with the team, so, who is this mysterious Curtis character? Mike’s wife Clare, the Team Manager, gives her husband a wry look, and then turns to me. “Curtis is the name of Mike’s childhood teddy bear,” she grins. “We needed a name for the team, and Mike didn’t want to use our own name, so we chose that instead. It seemed to fit.”

Further prodding reveals that there is slightly more to this than meets the eye. It turns out that Curtis is a long-standing family name, stemming from Mike’s maternal line. “My great uncle was a Curtis, and a fighter ace in World War I,” admits the ever reticent Mike. “He was one of three brothers, all of whom had that pioneering, adventurer’s spirit. In 1918, after the end of the War, Alan Curtis joined De Havilland, the aircraft manufacturers, and was involved in some of the great British aviation developments of the mid-twentieth century, including the Comet, the first jet airliner. He was also one of the first people to be invited to go aboard Concorde when that made its maiden flights in the 1970s. One of the other brothers was a prolific explorer and a gold mining engineer. They were all bold, audacious people, and I’m a bit like that when it comes to motor racing. I relish a challenge, and I enjoy ‘having a go’, so the name seemed appropriate.”

So Curtis is a family name for what is very much a family team, run by husband and wife partnership Mike and Clare Sweeney, with daughter Erin acting as Press Officer, and eldest of two sons, Jack, working as gofer and wheel-cleaner. That aside, the crew is much the same as the one that ran the Garner Motorsport entry in the Le Mans Series with Mike last year. “We put the FLM Oreca near pole, or on it, and then set fastest race lap nearly every time we raced in 2011, and with two different drivers as well,” says Mike.

Mike’s background is as an automotive and aviation engineer, and in recent years he’s worked for a succession of top GT and sportscar teams, helping several to record some notable successes. Time spent with Phil Hindley’s Tech 9 outfit saw Mike engineer the Porsche GT3R’s first win in international competition, and then he also masterminded the Lamborghini Gallardo’s first victory in British GT. “Those were consistently the fastest Lambos,” suggests Mike, with evident pride. “I may have engineered those cars, but I also learned a lot about running a race team from working with Phil and Tech 9. He’s a great strategist, and operates a very tight ship. It was truly inspirational, and I hope I can do as good a job.” More recently Mike has also worked with Trackspeed, and acknowledges the help he’s received from David Ashburn and Joe Macari, particularly in the weeks running up to this opening race of the 2012 season.

Mike can feel justifiably proud of having engineered cars that consistently perform well. To that end, this weekend’s showing in practice from the #42 has been doubly frustrating, but the inside story suggests that just getting the car to Paul Ricard has been an achievement. “We had a call from Oreca in February, asking what we were planning for this season, and we were invited to come here to Paul Ricard for an exclusive LMPC test day,” explains Clare. “That went well, and convinced us that we could go it alone this year. We’d proven last year that Mike could engineer the FLM chassis effectively, but this time we’d be doing it for ourselves.”

“The people at Oreca have been enormously helpful, all the way,” confirms Mike. “They’ve bent over backwards to make this task easier. That’s not just with us, but with all their customers, and I can’t speak highly enough about their service and support. It’s been excellent.”

“Over the last couple of years Oreca has worked so hard to promote LMPC, yet I still believe it’s one of the best-kept secrets in motor racing. It costs less than a season in Blancpain, but offers the drivers so much more track time, and they’re driving a proper prototype to boot. That has to be a bargain. On top of that, the cars have been running to the same set of rules for the last three years, and they look set to remain just as stable for the next three as well. That level of security is reassuring, and means that you can invest with confidence. I can’t really understand why others who aspire to go sportscar racing haven’t realised what a great deal this is. It’s the ideal first step on the ladder, which is exactly what it was always envisaged to be, of course.”

Even though Mike and the team have had a great level of cooperation from Oreca, it hasn’t been a straightforward journey. The deal came together very much at the last minute, and the chassis they’ve been working with this weekend has not been “their” chassis. The car they prepared and rebuilt so many times last year was unavailable for Paul Ricard, so they had to accept a substitute. In doing so, they also had to take on someone else’s idea of how an FLM car should be prepared. It hasn’t met Mike’s exacting standards.

Every night the team has worked late, stripping down and rebuilding elements of the car that they’d normally have had sorted weeks in advance of their arrival at a racetrack. “We seriously considered pulling out last week,” concedes Mike. “However, John Hartshorne encouraged us to press on. His faith in us has been such a boost to our morale, and it’s kept us going. He’s great to have in the team, and he never puts a foot wrong when he’s out there on track. He came second in the drivers’ championship last year, and people often overlook that. He’s also the perfect foil to Phil Keen’s enthusiasm and natural talent. I’ve been working with Phil for five years now, and there’s never a dull moment.” The line-up this weekend includes Alex Kapadia, a class-winner in the 2010 Dubai 24 Hours after a couple of seasons in Radicals, where he finished runner-up in the 2009 UK Cup.

Formula Le Mans was established with people like Mike Sweeney in mind, and seeing a family place everything on the line to go motor racing is a humbling experience. “We’re total rednecks, but we’ve put a great team together, and we’re proving that it is possible. We’re determined to give it a go, and if it all goes wrong, then at least we can say we tried.” In the light of current rumours from within the paddock, one can only hope that their faith in the Series isn’t undermined by events, and that they get a fair chance to prove themselves.