Andy Ball – The man behind the wheel of our race ready Boxster
Andy Ball has been involved in motorsport for 35 years. He started as a navigator in stage and road rallies in Escorts and Sunbeams. Andy then rallied a Mini and Fiat Strada as a driver. After a bit of a gap he started sprinting and hillclimbing various Caterham 7’s. These included bike engined variants of the 7 – a Fireblade and a Hayabusa. After a few seasons in a bike engined OMS single seater, Andy decided to have a go at circuit racing and in 2007 started racing Caterham’s. After two great seasons Andy asked RPM to build a Porsche 968 to race.
Andy recalls “This was after meeting Tony Dunk at a test day where I spent some time discussing the 964 that RPM had built for him – I was really impressed by the build quality and attention to detail”
“In fact the car they built was only raced a few times as it was just too nice and I now keep it for track days along with another very nice 968. A mate, Rich Hughes and I bought and then RPM almost entirely rebuilt a race prep’d 968. Rich and I raced this in the MSV Trackday Trophy and MSV Team Trophy. These two driver mini-endurance races were great fun and we did remarkably well”
Unfortunately the 968 was destroyed in a storage fire last year. This coincided with Rich needing to take a year off from racing. Andy had bought a race prep’d 987 Boxster the year before which the RPM team started working on and entered into the new MSV Trackday Championship, a seven round race series with cars classed dependent upon their power to weight ratio. Despite only managing to attend four rounds – Donington, Rockingham, Silverstone and Oulton Park, the team still managed to come third in class in the overall Championship.
This season sees us racing in the same Championship. The first round is in April at Donington. We also visit Snetterton (twice), Brand Hatch, Oulton Park, Silverstone and Rockingham.
“I can’t thank the RPM guys enough for preparing such great race cars. They are forever thinking of ways to improve the car. Confidence in the car is paramount when you are pushing on in a race. Nick and Andy’s attention to detail pays dividends in this respect. We have beaten many quicker competitors in these mini-endurance races as we have won through with reliability or just managed to pressure the competition into mistakes”
The whole team has great fun. A race weekend is hard work. It’s not without a few beers, a curry and many bacon butties though. We are a collection of good friends and have many proper belly laughs over a weekend.
“Over the years the guys at RPM have performed miracles: a clutch change between qualifying and the race at Cadwell, making the grid by seconds; an overnight cylinder head change at Snetterton including cars travelling to meet each other with parts from Knaresborough and Snetterton.”
“Thanks go out to Nick, Andy, Craig, Ash and Jack for all of their efforts in supporting us over the years.”
Here’s to another great season with RPM Specialist Cars and Team Bacon Butty Racing!