About Great Central Racing

1992 The first car

2002 The D-type

Great Central Racing was formed in late 1992, with the purchase of a single race car by the four founding members of the team. Of the founding members, two moved from positions within an existing team, while two were entirely new to the sport. The car was already over 5 years old but with a fairly successful history.

Our first racing season was 1993 and that year we scored some surprisingly good results for such a new team, finishing third in our first ever race, fourth in our first 24-hour race (beating the team from which two of the founding members had left in the process) and winning the end of season Mercia event in both the (now defunct) under-20's class and overall.

Following that first year, we built on our success, attracting more quality drivers through 1994 and acquiring a second car in 1995. From then until 2002 we fielded two competitive race cars in almost every contested event and both usually finished in the top five places.

With two cars to run, developing a strong technical side of the team became a priority and Great Central Race Engineering was born. Its remit was to maintain, repair and improve both cars, with the eventual aim of constructing vehicles "in house". This aim was fulfilled between the 1998 and 1999 seasons with the construction of Apollo, GCRE's first entirely home grown race car. Following a successful 1999 season with the Swebbelli (Rugby VSU) team, Apollo-type B cars Aquarius (for Swebbelli) and Odyssey (for GCR1) were rolled out for the 2000 season, incorporating several modifications learnt from the original.

The new cars proved to be the class of the field, so much so that GCRE took the unprecedented step of constructing another new car mid-season for GCR2, then racing the double-championship winning WindCutter Evo VII. The result was Intrepid, which GCR2 promptly took straight from the box to two victories and a second place in its first three outings - the car's total mileage was doubled within a few minutes of the start of its first race, yet it ran faultlessly through the next 16 hours of racing to the end of the 2000 season. GCRE now has its own website at www.gcre.co.uk

Since the team's inception late in 1992, a great deal of hard work and dedication, allied to an excellent team spirit, has allowed Great Central to become one of the most professional, most consistent and best performing teams in the British Pedal Car Championship (BPCC).

Great Central Racing finished first and third in the 1998 BPCC rankings, first and fourth in 1999 and an unprecedented first and second in 2000. We continued these high standards during 2001 to take a fourth consecutive title and indeed repeat 2000's 1-2.

2002 started with the team setting a new 1,000 mile World Pedal Car Record of 62 hours, 38 minutes, 26 seconds, in another brand new car constructed by GCRE for the attempt, and finished six months later with the team taking a fifth consecutive title after the closest and hardest fought season in the history of the championship.