BackMarker Brigade

BackMarker Brigade are the Cleanest, Friendliest & Most Fun Simracing Team on the Planet

June 6, 2010 • 11:45 pm 0

BMB News Round-Up

Apologies for the delay, but BackMarker Brigade has been a busy snail of late!

The news begins over at GRC where Simon Smith led the team home in both the sprint and feature races at Trois Riviere to claim his season best 10th and 9th places respectively. Paul Huggett claimed a great 14th in the sprint race while Gary Gray claimed a 13th in the feature race. All three drivers performed to their best round the tight Canadian street circuits and now sit 16th (Smith), 24th (Huggett) and 26th (Gray) in the standings as we move to Watkins Glen for the final round.

On the subject of GRC, BackMarker Brigade signed Scott Juliano to the team for Season 9 of the touring cars and for all the cup races, as well as seeing GPO driver Myles Dixon make his debut in the GRC Cup races this week too. Hans Bauer should also be starring in the upcoming GRC Endurance event too adding more new flair and fun to the team.

Grand Prix Online too continues to see great progress for the team! Alex Cooper lead the team home in the Turkish GP for 8th place and several points, just ahead of teammate Simon Smith taking 9th and two more vital points, both drivers maintaining their 100% points finishing record, Smith joint holding the leagure record for having a 100% finishing record and points finishing record! Maurice Willems was on course for points when he had to make an unscheduled pitstop which dropped him to 12th for the flag. Maurice Zondag crashed out with 13 laps to go from what looked like a certain 7th while Craig Johnston was centre of controversy when he was in the middle of a huge accident at turn 1, from which his car was so damaged it left it virtually undriveable and the young Brit parked it. The team will be welcoming Lee Palmer to the full distance challenge event from next round to race alongside Jordon Norwood who was not available for the Turkish GP.

Over at Race Department, our LeMans team didn’t even get off the starting line when ISP problems prevented Johnston taking the start and Jamie Rush was stuck in a driving lesson (oh the irony). However Bob Luneski upheld snail pride with his run to 12th at the FPWS Semi-Pro Turkish GP with another excellent drive. Bob is slowly moving up the championship standings to 17th, with BMB now 9th in the team standings. We are still last however in the Pro divison, so thank god for that!

Formula Sim Racing is last but not least in our news round up which is a celebration as Kostas Kantzouras drove a superb race to qualify for the first time for the main World Series race and then come home a fantastic 14th 2 laps adrift. In World Trophy Benjamin Chong drove his last race for the team before moving on to his new team venture and came home a great 15th. Teammate Roslan Gaidargi also qualified for the main race of WT but then failed to make it round the opening lap, but it was great to see his progress!

What a busy week for Meep!!!

Filed under: Driver Recruitment, Drivers, Formula Sim-Racing, FPWS, grand prix online, GRC Cup, GRC Endurance, GRC Touring Cars, Race Department, Race Results, RDLMS, Sim Racing, FPWS, FSR, gpo, GRC, Points, Race Results

March 14, 2010 • 11:37 am 0

Luneski & Johnston Score A Double Header In FPWS!

BackMarker Brigade’s latest driver signing Bob Luneski put himself straight into the box position by leading the team home to a fantastic double points finish with 14th for Bob and 15th for regular driver Craig Johnston.

Bob Luneski replaces Douglas Simoneli for the remainder of the season as Simoneli has blown up his computer! “It was pretty terminal but I hope to be back racing soon.”

Bob was only given the nod the night prior to the race, although he had been testing before the race. He drove a fantastic and consistent race to take home a scoop points. Teammate Johnston was running higher up the order until disaster struck in his pitstop when no fuel was added to his car, and he had to go straight in next lap round. The league, which is ran through Race 07, uses gt physics and so pitstops take virtually an entire lap. Johnston was able to recover to score the final points in 15th.

While the semi-pro duo had a great night, the Pro drivers started off to a dream with Mark Birney starting 20th and rising to 12th after a fantastic start. Guest driver Johnathon Wilson qualified 6th and dropped to 9th but soon both were to be in trouble. An accident retired Birney who had dropped back to 20th again by the time his car had become undrivable, however it was the best showing the Irishman had shown so far in 2010 and shows light at the end of the tunnel as he struggles with the cars handling. Wilson had an epic race battling around for 6th all race before a graphics card error froze his game and he was out on the spot.

Team boss Simon Smith, who commentated the Pro race for PSRTV was delighted overall. “Firstly I’d like to thank Johnathon for his guest race and he is most welcome back in our team whenever he wants. The cockpit is always open! Also a massive thank you to Bob who in his debut for the team showed that courage and detirmination can pull you right into the points for a great result for the team. Craig is also so detirmined and loves the league, but once again ran into trouble but hopefully the fuel man will remember to his job next time. It was also great to see Mark battling hard with other drivers, and once we’ve worked more as a team on set ups, I’m sure we’ll start to see Mark’s potential turn into real results!”

Melbourne is the next round on the 27th March, live on PSRTV.

Filed under: FPWS, Race Results, bob luneski, Craig Johnston, FPWS, johnathon wilson, Mark Birney, Points, Race Department, Race Results, Simon Smith

February 10, 2010 • 1:14 am 0

Wilde Scores On BMB Debut at Race Department’s FPWS!

Scott Wilde gave BackMarker Brigade a debut to remember in FPWS by grabbing 7th place and massive points haul at Interlagos. Wilde even led the race during the pitstops! Team boss Smith, also the series commentator said “I was overwhelmed when I saw one of my cars leading a Grand Prix!”

Scott Wilde started well up the field and ran in the top 5 for a vast proportion of the race but some fuel strategy problems meant Wilde dropped down the order and had it all to do again. 7th in the end was a valiant effort.

“I’m very proud of what Scott achieved today and shows once again that BackMarker Brigade mean business” said Smith.

Team-mate Mark Birney, making his BMB debut, ran into early trouble when he was collected in the usual turn 1 antics. Birney was able to soldier on for a few laps battling gamely towards the back of the field but eventually the suspension damage went his car was undrivable and it threw him off into retirement. In the Semi-Pro rounds Douglas Simoneli was unable to start, but will be back for round 2 and Craig Johnston drove a storming race and was on for a very solid points finish until a mistake on lap 40 ended his race.

Abu-Dhabi is up in two weeks time, and BackMarker Brigade promise to be well in on the action, which you can see on PSRTV.

Filed under: FPWS, Race Department, Race Results, Craig Johnston, Douglas Simoneli, Mark Birney, Scott Wilde

January 22, 2010 • 12:32 am 0

BackMarker Brigade Unveil Race Department FPWS Livery & Drivers for 2010

This is the first glimpse of the BackMarker Brigade’s new livery for Race Department’s FPWS series. The car will be driven in both the PRO and Semi Pro divisions and preparations are going well.

The PRO drivers will be Englishman Scott Wilde and Irishman Mark Birney. Wilde brings a wealth of experience from FSR, while Birney ran convincingly in 2009 for a rival team before making the switch to BMB.

The Semi-Pro team will be headed by Craig Johnston and the second seat will be shared between Douglas Simoneli and Matt Maleki. Craig has a wealth of experience from touring cars but this marks his first big league appearance in open wheeled action, whilst Simoneli and Malecki both ran FSR as rookies in 2009.

Team boss Simon Smith was delighted with his 2010 concoction.

“It’s a real mixture of people, all of them relatively new to BackMarker Brigade and all of them a pleasure to know. I’m sure all of them will really enjoy themselves and I think we’ll have a few adventures and points along the way, especially in PRO as Scott and Mark are rapidly improving, while Craig is also coming on leaps and bounds to lead to Semi-Pro team. It’s a fantastic time as we step into the unknown.

However, we will be running without sponsorship for this league as we have asked out sponsors to kindly donate to Help Haiti via our MAP charity we endorse. Thus only my personal webpages will appear on the car.”

The season kicks off in 15 days at Interlagos and the action will be on PSRTV from 6pm GMT. The full driver line up for the league can be found here.

Filed under: car launch, Driver Recruitment, FPWS, Race Department, car launch, Craig Johnson, Douglas Simoneli, FPWS, Mark Birney, Matt Malecki, Race Department, Scott Wilde

Watch Us LIVE!

FSR WS, Singapore GP

Sept 19, 2010 @ 16:30 GMT on MultiBC

FSR WT, Singapore GP

Sept 20, 2010 @ 11:30 GMT on MultiBC

GRC Touring Cars S9 - Div 1

From September, 2010 @ 20:15 UK on PSRTV

Grand Prix Online

Every F1 Race Weekend Sat 20:15 BST and Sun 10:15 BST

Latest Standings

GRC Touring Cars Season 9

(after Round 0)

Pos	Division 1	Pts
00	Scott Juliano	000
Pos	Division 2	Pts
00	Simon Smith	000
00	Paul Huggett	00
00	Gary Gray	000
00	Ryan Walker	000

View Full Standings

Grand Prix Online

(after Round 14)

Pos	Challenge	Pts
32	Danni Fugl	3
36	Jordan Norwood	0
36	Gary Gray	0
36	Lee Palmer	0
36	Douglas Simoneli	0
Pos	Sprint	Pts
5	Simon Smith	74
9	Alex Cooper	36
8	Craig Johnston	57
13	Maurice Willems	20
16	Maurice Zondag	24
14	Dave-Carr Smith	25
32	Gary Cooper	1
33	Emmanuel Baako	0
33	Paul Frampton	0

View Full Standings

RD : FP World Series

(after Round 7)

Pos	Pro	Pts
22	Scott Wilde	9
34	Mark Birney	0
Pos	Semi Pro	Pts
19	Bob Luneski	13
21	Craig Johnston	7
Pos	Pacific	Pts
25	Chris Rigby	3
26	Phil Cook	0

View Full Standings

Formula Sim Racing

(after Round 6)

Pos	World Series	Pts
16	Rando Muru	43
41	Kostas Kantzouras	4
43	Kerkar Abdelaziz	0
Pos	World Trophy	Pts
40	Roslan Gaidargi	6
42	Craig Johnston	5
46	Benjamin Chong	1