Popular underdog British Touring Car Championship team Power Maxed Racing will be on the grid for this weekend’s Knockhill round despite a fire destroying its premises and equipment.
The blaze took hold of PMR’s West Midlands facilities on Saturday, with only the team’s transporters, which were parked away from the buildings, emerging unscathed.
An open letter from team boss Adam Weaver to ‘partners, competitors, fans and most of all friends’ read: “A fire ripped through our facilities, destroying absolutely everything – our product factory, our stock warehouse, and our race team.
“The heat was so intense it melted solid gearbox casings, reduced entire engines to warped molten metal, and left nothing but ash and twisted steel of the buildings. Years of work, equipment, and investment were destroyed in a matter of hours. All tools, spare parts and components have been lost.”
That included the Power Maxed Vauxhall Astra race cars, one of which carried Mikey Doble to the team’s first BTCC race victory since 2019 at Snetterton in May of this year.
But the BTCC community has rallied around to help, and PMR drivers Doble and Nick Halstead will take to the track in Scotland this weekend in Cupra Leon machinery.
Mikey Doble, Motor Parts Direct with Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra
Photo by: JEP
One is the machine raced most recently in 2024 by Scott Sumpton with Restart Racing, and was recently acquired by the family of Un-Limited Motorsport racer Dexter Patterson.
The other is the Un-Limited car driven so far this season by Max Hall and Stephen Jelley, with the Leicester veteran now understood to be unlikely to rejoin the fray this season unless his former team One Motorsport returns.
BTCC organiser TOCA has allowed special dispensation in order for the entry to be transferred from Un-Limited to PMR.
Weaver, who had already faced a fight to keep his team going for 2025 after his former title sponsor terminated its contract during the winter, is overwhelmed with the support.
“Hopefully it will all be reality come Saturday morning,” Weaver told Autosport. “The place was on fire, and Martin [Broadhurst, team manager and technical chief] came up to watch it burn with me.
“In a totally sarcastic way, I said, ‘Are we going racing next weekend then?’ And then that somehow became reality.I rang Dexter’s old man Roddy, and he didn’t hesitate to say yes. I called Un-Limited because I didn’t know whether Stephen was in for the season, and they didn’t take too much persuading to allow us to take that responsibility on.”
Max Hall, ROKiT Racing with Un-Limited Motorsport Cupra Leon
Photo by: JEP
With no facilities of their own, PMR’s staff are at different locations in Scotland preparing the cars for Knockhill.
“It’s a big enough problem doing it in your own workshop with all your own tools,” added Weaver. “Having to beg, borrow and steal to do that has been tough to say the least.
“Dexter’s car is at a workshop in Glasgow and we’ve got some people up there, and the Un-Limited car is being prepped at Knockhill itself.”
In the meantime, PMR has lost its long-serving, faithful but still competitive Astras, “and our original trophies”, said Weaver. “We can get replicas, but they won’t have the champagne on them…”
Looking further ahead, the BTCC homologation was due to run out on the Astra at the end of 2026, meaning PMR is likely to have to bring forward the design and build of its next car.
“We’ve got no choice,” said Weaver. “We’ve got to get the budget together to build the cars.
“But we’re just taking it by the day, by the hour for the moment.”
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