This weekend at Croft, BRD launches its new race team – teamBRD. teamBRD is competing in the Formula BMW UK Championship with top rookie and BMW scholarship driver Tom Gladdis.
Since BRD was formed in 1994 its aim has been to make motorsport more accessible through the use of simulation. For the last 13 years BRD has developed its reputation for producing the most effective and realistic driving control systems and simulators. Combined with the in house development of its own real time race software package BRD has been in the unique position of providing a total simulation solution.
A number of the leading teams and drivers have been using BRD simulation packages for training and testing. Having established a level of credibility in some areas of motorsport for real time simulation BRD is now putting its 13 years of technical development and expertise to the test to further raise that credibility. BRD passionately believes that simulation is an effective tool not only for driver training and development but also for making motorsport accessible to a wider audience.
Tom's Race Cars
BRD’s experience in supplying control systems to consumers and involvement in the associated simulation racing communities means that we recognise that there is a wealth of driving talent that exists that is untapped. The majority of this talent has little or no access to track racing as a driver. It is BRD’s intention to change this situation and see that motorsport becomes a true sport in which those with ability have the opportunity to compete, not on the basis of finance but on the basis of merit.
Simulation offers a cost effective tool for assessing driver talent as well as developing that talent.
Initially teamBRD will be racing one car supporting Tom Gladdis. In late 2006 BRD sponsored Tom with its Pro Race Trainer simulator package and when the opportunity came to establish the team with Tom it made a perfect fit. The aim for the remainder of the 2007 season is to see Tom meet his ambitions for the season and prepare Tom and the team for a serious assault on the new format Formula BMW Championship in 2008. BRD aims to collect as much data and feedback as possible to validate and continually improve its simulation models so that the results achieved in the simulation are as accurate and reliable as possible. Then when it comes to determining driver line up alongside Tom for 2008 we can make an accurate assessment of driver ability before moving to formal in car testing.
By getting involved in track racing as well as continuing to be involved in simulation racing, BRD believes that it can bring together both forms of racing delivering a much greater audience to both.
A three-day promotion of a limited edition watch by Swiss watchmakers Oris attracted an astonishing number of spectators at its launch in Shanghai.
Oris Shanghai, sponsors of the WilliamsF1 team, hired the BRD-built Williams FW28 to publicise a £1,579.00 watch, the Williams TT3 Chronograph, of which only 3,000 have been manufactured world-wide.
The promotion, staged outside a leading department store in the centre of Shanghai on September 25-27, was kicked off by the appearance of Williams driver, Nico Rosberg, which attracted national newspaper and television coverage.
According to Oris Shanghai marketing executive Gukki Tang, the event attracted an estimated total of 30,000.
BRD-Built Williams simulator
attracts the crowds
Marketing executive Gukka Tang said: “People were very curious to know more about the WilliamsF1. It proved extremely successful, with around 10,000 people per day visiting the display.”
The Williams simulator also drew the crowds the next day when the Chinese division of Mattel Inc, the US-based toy manufacturer, used it to promote its product outside another leading department store in Shanghai.
BRD’s Pit-Stop Challenge posed its own challenge for the event management team when the Toyota Formula One team took over the centre of Helsinki to give the Finnish capital a close-up taste of an F1 car in action.
An estimated 60,000 people turned out on August 13 to watch Jarno Trulli drive his F1 car round six laps of a street circuit specially constructed to give fans the perfect opportunity to see F1 man and machine in close-up action.
Adding to the excitement was the Toyota Pit-Stop Challenge, simulator equipment designed and manufactured by BRD to test pit-stop wheel-changing skills, and which has established itself as a great success in interactive marketing.
Between 9am and 1.30pm, teams of 12 competed for the fastest time, with members of the winning team receiving Toyota team caps signed by Trulli.
By the end of the day more than 700 people had formed themselves into teams to test their pit-stop skills.
John Adams, Director of BSL, a London-based event management company for Toyota, said: “We ran a crew of five mechanics around the car, and also four hostesses plus a moderator. We needed a crew of that size to keep everything under the control, not least the crowds.
Where there's a wheel there's a way...
“We could have run it for longer and got more people through, but we were at about the maximum. The response from the public was amazing.
“It is not often people in Helsinki see an F1 car powering around the city centre, nor get an idea of the skills necessary to change the tyres of an F1 car under great time pressure, and which a top F1 crew can achieve in around three seconds.”
The fastest pit-stop time at Helsinki? “9.98 seconds,” said John.
Said John: “Over the six days the crew had more 2,640 people competing on the Pit-Stop Challenge. On average there were around 40 teams of 12 per day. Actually, the hardest part was keeping the moderator going, as with that volume of people he was in danger of losing his voice”
Classy classics such as the 1931 Daimler Double-Six 50 Corsica Drophead Coupe, which went on to win the Best of Show award, had a little unconventional competition at this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the most prestigious classic cars event in America.
It came from two BRD-built simulators – the Lotus 49, which debuted at the Dutch Grand Prix in June 1967 with the equally legendary Jim Clark behind the wheel, and the BRD-O5, which is based in the USA.
The simulators, which featured among more than $200 million of classic cars, were sponsored for the August 17-20 event by American Express.
Back to the past in Lotus 49
The Lotus 49 had a particular attraction for visitors who remembered the Pebble Beach Road Race, which was held on the winding, leafy and very narrow roads of Pebble Beach from 1950 to 1956 under the authority of the Sports Car Club of America.
Thanks to add-on software of the road race circuit, provided by technology analyst Jim Turley, they were able to experience the thrill of racing the Lotus 49 simulator on the two-mile circuit of fifty years ago.
Kandance Hawkinson, Director of Media Relations, said: “The simulators were definitely a great success, inviting spectators to experience history for themselves, rather than simply viewing it from a distance of several decades.”
Class double act: Lotus 49 and BRD-05
BRD director Simon Ball, who heads up the recently-opened North American office of BRD in Santa Cruz, California, said: “Although the audience was a knowledgeable one, I think the simulators gave them an eye-opening appreciation of the skills of both the drivers of yesteryear and their modern counterparts. It was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the quality of the hardware and software development that is taking place in the UK.”
(L to R): Stefanie Chacon, Toyota Marketing Director (Guatemala); Luis Arboleda,
Marketing F1 Simulator Toyota-Panasonic; and journalist Agustin Casse,
Formula One fans and the public alike are flocking to the latest shopping mall in Guatemala City. But it’s not the mall’s futuristic design that is bringing in the crowds.
It’s the Toyota TF106 F1 car simulator built by BRD for Cofiño Stahl y Compañia Ltda, a leading Toyota national marketing and sales company in the Latin American and Caribbean region, which wanted to cause a promotional stir at its Toyota boutique showroom in the mall.
The result has delighted Ricardo Urruela, the company’s general manager and the man who gambled on its success.
The Toyota F1 car.a major attraction
“Yes, it was a gamble,” said Ricardo. “It was not a cheap purchase for a company of our size, but I had heard of their success elsewhere, and I wanted something that was going to make people look twice. It has certainly done that.”
Before the F1 car simulator was shipped out from the UK, the boutique, Team Toyota, was attracting daily about 30 members of the public.
“Now on the weekends alone, we have more than 800 people visiting the store,” said Ricardo. “Isn’t that incredible? And everybody leaves the store very impressed.”
The Toyota F1 car simulator on the 'grid'
Last month, it was the turn of the media to crowd out the boutique in the Pradera Concepción shopping mall, when 20 journalists from newspaper, cable, television and magazines took part in a three-lap race to find Guatemala’s fasted F1 simulator driver.
The winner was Agustín Casse, from the cable TV programme, "TSR-Everything about Wheels", with a best-lap time of 1:18:523 seconds.
Said Ricardo: “The event was a great way of improving a positive relationship with the media, as well as increasing the number of Toyota fans. It was so successful we plan to stage a similar event next year.”
Three Tory Members of Parliament (MP) found out what it is like to throw an F1 car around a grand prix track when Oxford conservative associations held a meet-the-media day at The WilliamsF1 Conference Centre in Wantage, Oxfordshire, in July.
The three politicians-cum-boy-racers - Boris Johnson, MP for Henley; Tony Baldry, MP for Banbury; and Ed Vaizey, MP for Wantage – eagerly got into the cockpit of a WilliamsF1 FW28 simulator, built for the team by BRD, for the benefit of the press snappers.
Launched into the simulation world of F1 racing by BRD Racing software, the comments of the MPs made the simulator a vote-winner by a clear majority.
Said Ed Vaizey: “To drive the simulator is the closest I will ever get to driving a real Formula One car – even more so after my lamentable performance.
“If they ever do Formula ‘off road’, though, I’m your man. Seriously, it is a fantastic and amazing experience and highly addictive. I had trouble getting out of the cockpit, and not just because of my size.”
BallRacing Developments Ltd and netKar PRO - market leaders in their respective development of hardware and software for the professional racedriver and simracing community - have joined forces to co-develop the next generation of motorsport simulation.
It will create in one company a single co-ordinated approach to simulation that will ensure the development of the most effective and exciting simulators, with no longer any division between hardware and software.
For BRD, the formal agreement will enable the company to offer the motorsport world, and not least F1 teams, a level of realism in graphics and physics that has established netKar PRO has among the most creative and innovative software developers.
Driven by Lead Programmer Stefano Casillo, who founded netKar PRO as a hobby in 2001, he and his team launched in Italy in April their latest software which has such advanced features as a complex tyre model whose traction and handling can be affected by dirt, wear and flat spot caused by driver brake-locking.
It also features a fully interactive cockpit with an instrument panel that can be actually operated through a mouse, or the controls of the simulator, and a fully modeled telemetry data acquisition system to electronically record the performance of engine and actuation of controls by the driver, which can then be used as a foundation for determining car setup.
Said managing director Nik Ball: "We are tremendously excited by our plans of developing with Stefano and his associates the next generation of hardware and software simulation that will put forward an evermore compelling argument for the use of simulators in motorsports across the board.
"With netKar PRO working as BRD's exclusive software development team, we will be able to offer motorsport the most technically advanced simulation hardware and software package available on the market."
For Stefano and his Italian-based team, the collaboration is seen as "a tremendous opportunity for netKar PRO to enter the professional market through the main door, allowing us to work closer with racing teams and to target our software to meet their requirements.
"It will also give us a unique opportunity to create the first unified package of hardware and software in simracing. Working closely with BRD will allow both of us to experiment and develop new solutions to bring simracing even closer to real racing."
BallRacing Developments Corporate and Professional Sales Office will be shut down next week (31st
July 2006 through 4th August 2006) as part of its annual
shutdown for site improvements and restructuring. All online orders placed during this break will be addressed on the next business day after the shutdown.
BallRacing Developments’ (BRD) growing association with Formula One teams has taken another step forward with the news that the WilliamsF1 Team has granted BRD a two-year licence to produce and market its simulator services to the team’s sponsors and partners in the Americas and the Far East.
Said managing director Nik Ball: “We are naturally delighted that the WilliamsF1 Team sees BRD as the company to promote its brand through our simulation services, as well as the brands of its sponsors and partners, with whom we are very much looking forward to working with.
“BRD has a long history of working with F1 teams, and I like to think that becoming an official licensee to the WilliamsF1 Team is validation of the quality of our simulators.”
He added: “In addition to their unique profile-raising marketing benefits, we firmly believe that they have a legitimate place, used alongside our track-scanning software technology, in improving driver performance.
“In fact, we hope this association with the WilliamsF1 Team will present the opportunity to demonstrate the very real practical benefits of using our simulators and track-scanning technology to sharpen driver skills.”
BRD: Official Licensee to the WilliamsF1 Team
With major sponsors, such as Budweiser and FedEx in the United States, and Petrobras in Brazil, BRD believes the licence agreement coincides perfectly with plans to open later this month a North American operational centre to offer corporations in North and South America a more cost-effective solution to their marketing simulation requirements. A Far East operation is also planned to be opened later this year.
Said Nik: “The licence agreement with the WilliamsF1 Team couldn't have come at a better time. We propose to take full advantage of it.”
Commenting on the licence agreement, Simon Forester, the WilliamsF1 Team Merchandising and Licensing Manager, said: “This is the first time that a Williams liveried simulator has been available for hire within the Americas and the Far East. The strategic citing of the two cars will allow sponsors and partners to proactively market and promote their association with the team by having a full size, fully liveried Williams FW28 simulator available for hire. I am sure this service will be very popular and a valuable asset to the marketing strategy of our sponsor community.”
Mark Webber with (l to r clockwise) Mason, Harry, Demie and Oliver
Four youngsters granted wishes from the Make A Wish Foundation took on WilliamsF1 driver Mark Webber today in the most thrilling race of their young lives.
The head-to-head showdown was staged at Hamley’s, the world-famous toy shop in London, when Mark was invited to visit its Sports Academy, where a WilliamsF1 car simulator built by BallRacing Developments for the team was on display along side a real WilliamsF1 car.
The fab four, who were invited to meet Mark after Hamleys, a sponsor of WilliamsF1, contacted the Make-A-Wish Foundation UK, a charity that grants wishes to children and young people aged three to 17 suffering from life-threatening illnesses.
So the scene was set for the youngsters to burn the 29-year-old Aussie off the track. And Oliver Caldicott, 4, Demie Risby, 7, Mason Gibbsa, 12, and Harry Rolph, 17, didn't disappoint their fans – their proud spectator parents and a gathering crowd of slightly partisan members of the public.
Last-minute advice from Oliver?
One by one, they left Mark tasting their software exhaust fumes. He climbed out of the cockpit to spend some time talking to the youngsters, posing for photographs, and autographing baseball caps for them, as well as joining them for lunch, where he presented each of them with a F1 Williams remote control car signed by him.
Mark, who recently set up the 'Mark Webber Pure Tasmania Challenge' trek across Tasmania to raise funds for cancer charities, said: “I had a great time meeting the kids. That kind of thing makes me realise how fortunate I am.”
Carole Pallant, special projects manager for Make-A-Wish, said: “It was a very exciting day for our wish children. Mark Webber was wonderful with them even though the children beat him on the simulator! Hamleys couldn’t have been more supportive of our charity and the families were made to feel very special.”
After a long review of the BRD business which covers both corporate and end user customers, we have mutually agreed with Sim-Saga in Belgium, Trinity Racing Concepts in the USA and Virtual-Games in Portugal that our end user distribution agreements with them will terminate with immediate effect. The main reason for this change to our end user distribution strategy has been the huge increase in our corporate activity and the demand for simulators and control systems within this field. This has impacted our ability to develop and produce new product for end user customers, particularly our Speed7 product range and hence, amongst other things, our ability to keep our distributors in stock.
To redress the balance and reflect the continued importance of our end user customers, BRD will shortly be releasing more details on the development of a new division teamBRD which will takeover all aspects of the sales and support of our Speed7 range of controls and products.
Whilst our distribution agreements have ended we have in no way ceased our links with these companies and we very much hope to continue to draw on the experience, commitment and passion for this business that they have displayed over the last few years.
These changes have no effect on the warranties of BRD products purchased through Sim-Saga, Trinity Racing Concepts or Virtual Games. Any enquiries made to them will be passed on to teamBRD for handling.
For further information on sales or for any questions about existing products purchased, please contact teamBRD at info@teambrd.co.uk
They came, they saw – and they raved over BallRacing Developments’ latest motorsport driver-training simulator, the Pro RaceTrainer.
Visitors to the two-day engineering section of the Autosport International show at Birmingham’s NEC literally queued to sit behind the wheel of the simulator specifically designed to give the serious racer a serious edge in his driving performance.
Said managing director Nik Ball: “The interest shown in the Pro RaceTrainer was extremely encouraging, as were the views of those closely associated with motorsport, such as team managers and drivers.
“The Pro RaceTrainer takes our driver-training motorsport simulators to a new level, which we earnestly believe can not only improve driving performance but also, with our customisable software and track-mapping technology, can actually be used to accurately replicate actual test conditions, with all the enormous savings of costs that go with it.
For review comments on the Pro RaceTrainer, click on Le Mans driver Tommy Erdos, Formula BMW driver Chris Holmes and highly-rated go-karter Tom Dunstan, who has been invited to join a Formula BMW team.
Oil giant Shell was looking for a show-stopping event to attract the crowds to its exhibition stand in the MPH05 Car Show at the NEC, Birmingham, and Earls Court, London, in November.
The company’s marketing team wanted something to create maximum impact as part of a promotional campaign to promote Shell Optimax petrol.
The solution? To run the Shell Optimax Forecourt Challenge, which, with a refueling rig simulator, involved entrants filling the tank of a BRD Formula One simulator before jumping into the cockpit to attempt to record the fastest lap of a grand prix track.
Amie Barnes, Brand and Communications Manager for Shell UK, said: “The response from the public was astonishing. There was a constant queue – mostly male, predictably – which kept the simulator in non-stop use for eight to nine hours a day at both venues. We were really pleased with the simulator and the problem-free operational control.”
More than 1,000 members of the public entered the competition, which was won by Kagan Rusten with the fastest time of 1:38:84. He took the chequered flag to win a year’s free supply of Optimax petrol.
Simon Lake, Toyota GB's Facilities Manager,
and BRD's Tim Ball at the wheels of the simulators.
BRD’s F1 and Compact RaceCarsimulators were the stars of the show when they featured in a recent episode of Channel 5’s Gadget Show.
More than one million viewers of the popular show, produced by independent television company, North One Television Midlands, saw the two simulators in action at BRD’s factory in Newchapel, Surrey, and at Toyota GB's headquarters at Burgh Heath, Surrey.
Said producer Ewan Kiel: “We were delighted with the results. The originality and uniqueness of the simulators fitted perfectly with our remit and audience profile, which targets viewers between the ages of 16 and 34 with plenty of cash liquidity.
“Frankly, we weren’t sure what to expect in the way of accurate simulation. We were delighted, and somewhat astonished, to discover how accurately they replicate the real-world experience as we imagine it to be.”
BallRacing Developments has acquired new factory premises to achieve greater quality control, faster production times and more efficient management systems co-ordination.
Staff moved into the 5,500 sq ft site in Newchapel, near Lingfield, Surrey, formerly occupied by Activa Composites Ltd, which was set up to provide manufacturing support to motorsport teams, following negotiations in December 2004 that took just four weeks to conclude.
As part of the deal, BRD purchased Activa Composites’ assets, which included state-of-the-art autoclave and specialist equipment for the production of parts, patterns and tools for Formula One, GT, touring and rally cars.
Said managing director Simon Ball: “The opportunity to acquire the premises was too good to miss. It fitted in perfectly with our plans to bring some of our manufacturing in-house this year to give us greater quality control and faster turn-around time for specialist projects.
“Everything happened with remarkable speed. We had taken some moulds to Activa in the morning only to be told a couple of hours later that they company was going into liquidation. That was on December 17. By January 17 the lease was signed and we had moved in.”
The factory, which also contains spacious office accommodation, will house manufacturing and research and design development, while BRD’s premises in Leigh, near Reigate, Surrey, will house the head office and administration.
But BRD may soon be on the move again. Increasing business is causing senior management to consider a move to still bigger premises in 2006.
