November 17th 2018 saw the annual GT & Sports Car Cup luncheon and awards presentation ceremony 2018. This year the event was hosted again at the lavish setting of the ‘Soho House Farmhouse’ situated in rural, Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.
The GT & Sports Car Cup is a race series for genuine Pre-66 GTs and Pre-63 Sports Cars. This event see’s spectacular historic Jaguar E-Types, Austin Healeys and AC Cobras to name but a few, compete in prime historic race meeting locations throughout Europe. Now about to start its twelfth season, this race series is renowned for its extremely high driving standards and see’s Jeremy winning the GTSCC for a fourth time. Jeremy has campaigned in every GT & Sports Car Cup race bar one, since the series inception in 2007. He has secured overall series victory four times; in 2007, in 2014 with co-driver Mark Pangborn and in 2016 and now in 2018 with co-driver Martyn Corfield.
The pairing, who were overall winners in 2016, driving Jeremy's Healey KVS 484, switched to campaigning Corfield's ex-works John Gott Healey 3000, SMO746 for 2017-2018. 2019 will see Corfield and Welch return to the track in SMO once again.
Martyn Corfield and Jeremy Welch rose to the occasion and proudly received the ‘Overall’ and ‘Winners In Class Award’ after a hard fought out season in SMO746 the ex-works John Gott Austin Healey 3000 with tough challenges throughout the events from other drivers in this competitive race series, winning the class at three out of four weekends.
Also receiving a prestigious award for ‘Second Place In Class’ were Alex Bell & Julian Thomas, drivers of the Austin 3000 767KNX which has been prepared by our race team at Denis Welch Motorsport. This is another successful ex-works Sebring car, as driven in the 1964 12 Hours Works entry, driven by the “Mini Legend” Paddy Hopkirk. The ex-works Sebring car was also entered into the Targa Florio event during 1966 and later in 1968 finishing in twenty ninth position.
Jeremy and his team have competed in both Austin Healey and Jaguar E-Types over the last twelve years in the GT & Sports Car Cup, both in his own cars and as a co-driver for customers, sometimes both in the same race!! Competitive racing in these superb, high value, historic cars is an immense challenge; however Jeremy and his team are already preparing for the next season and will continue to move forward in 2019.
