By Aidan Tudge
Marketing Apprentice, HIDS4U
When we received a call at HIDS4U asking if we could supply one of our new Stealth Xenon HID Headlight Kits for a team of injured troops doing a 24 hour endurance race at Silverstone, we were excited to say the least! Everyone here at HIDS4U is into cars, and having been involved in motorsport myself before, this was a great opportunity.
If you don’t know about Team BRIT’s mission (British Racing Injured Troops), I highly recommend you check out their website; but to put it simply, they are a team of soldiers who show through motorsport, that injuries and PTSD are hurdles that can be overcome & you can still achieve amazing things. Their ultimate goal is to race at Le Mans.
In a 24hr race, headlights are a very crucial component. At this time of year nearly 11 hours of racing is in the dark. You can imagine then, that you will want to see where you are going around the track. With our new Stealth Xenon HID Kit in the headlights, the car was sorted for the night.
As part of our sponsorship, Team BRIT was kind enough to give us free team passes to the entire race. This generous offer lead me to be standing in their garage staring at the racing car. I couldn’t have felt more in the way, but it was truly amazing to be so close to the action. I happened to jump into the garage as the car came in for it’s first pit stop and driver change. The speed and efficiency in which the stop was carried out was staggering. The driver came in; the car went up on air jacks, another driver got in, the old smoking tyres were thrown past me and the car was on it’s way. Once the garage had settled down again I couldn’t help but touch the tyres. I will never forget how warm those tyres where, you could have made your breakfast on them.
Eventually I peeled away from the garage and went to watch the race. Every car was going for it. Popping and banging on downshifts and flying by the spectators area. To watch a true race car gets any petrol head excited, to watch 41 of them is heaven. I have to admit, I was jealous of the people who had pitched a tent on the grass bank by Copse corner. I wouldn’t mind being woken up at 2am because a diff had blown oil all over the circuit.
Team BRIT however was doing well. The rain and the dark was favouring the front wheel drive Golf. They even managed their fastest laps during this time whilst other drivers were starting to become sloppy; leaving the track occasionally. By the time it was pitch black with the rain coming in sideways, they had climbed to 8th and were pushing hard.
My final present from the guys for the night was being there when the car they shared the garage with (and the winner overall) pitted right in front of me. Again, a hot set of wet tyres came flying my way I couldn’t have been happier.
Unfortunately after I left to go home, the Golf’s gearbox failed, stopping their race for at least 2 hours. Most people would scrap their car if the gearbox gave up, however this determined team still managed to come 10th in class. I for one, cannot congratulate and thank them enough for a great weekend and choosing HIDS4U to sponsor them. Here’s to them racing at Le Mans!
Visit Team Brit’s Website to follow their journey…