From Garage To HQ…

I started Kabort Motorsport in my lounge, a small, tiny idea…maybe it’d be cool if RSR Esports would have a team specifically for VRS Endurance, so I asked around, and one or two were up for it. I also asked this driver from AOD Racing that I practiced with if he’d like to join too…he did.

The two previous seasons I had done were “fixed” series – series with fixed/static baseline setups, so it was odd when a VRS Endurance lorry came and dumped an Audi R8 GT3 outside my front door…

it used to be that as soon as the race was over, the FIVA (Federation Internationale De Virtuel l’Automobile ) would take the car back, ensure it wasn’t tampered with and give it back at the next weekend.

As I was progressing, out of Mazda’s that season, they offered to keep it at their storage facility, whilst I raced (or should I say “iRaced” hahahah) in the Ferrari GT3 Challenge.

After a little bit of chin scratching I was able to sort out getting the car on a flight to Montgomery…after a poor opening round, we went back to my house, discussed what was wrong, and managed to sort out the issues we had….In addition to swapping the Audi for a much more stable Ferrari (FIVA allowed teams to change cars, but strictly for the first round only). Coincidentally, this was the same one I used in the previous season’s Ferrari GT3 Challenge series.

Fast forward 5 or so weeks of looking after with all my heart and having some Top 10’s, namely at Canada, Brands Hatch and Spa Francorchamps and some not so good results (DNF’s included) demand for my team considerably grew…I’m not sure if it was due to Spa Francorchamps being the following weekend, or the 21st place success we had at Watkins (running a completely white livery), but we had enough willing drivers to run a 2nd car…so I splashed out, got a second one painted (and had a third ready to be shipped to Belgium (R.I.P 3rd Car) and the 2nd car arrived a week or so before the 24…everyone in the team madly practiced…but what happened next was truly unexpected. Not even the championship leaders could anticipate. #IncidentGate happened. The Saturday race having a limit of only 44 Incidents disqualifying the majority of the field…infuriating fans, drivers and team principals alike. Sunday came around, And #IncidentGate was all the rage – but the IFIADE just added salt to the wound, and a barrell of fuel to the raging fire. No Incident Limit. The rules were thrown out of the window, and anything goes. Safety Ratings and Licences were about to be shredded to pieces – but if you had to sacrifice an insignificant number for a faster lap-time and better grid position…would you? Many did. and the start of a new contreversial move was started… #iRatingGate (otherwise known as #X6tenceBlackGate was born. The FIVA put an iRacing team with minimum iRating of a staggering and shocking – 3808 – in the lowest split. People were not happy after the race and quite rightly so, but all we cared about was our precious 12th place – and the fact we finished. We had an absolutely insane race, crazy with ups, downs, highs, lows….everything. Early on in the race our car completely cut-out and (somehow we managed to pull out the old engine, and replace it with a spare all within 9 or 10 minutes) after this we resumed running 1 – 2 cars (on non race days, they were parked one behind the other in my driveway.

A hectic but awesome Season 3 was coming to a close, Florian, a key driver in the Spa 24 left…and I was determined to run the ELMS (Endurance Le Mans Series) the following season, as well as the Bathurst 1000km, and upcoming TCR season….so I took out a loan of £10,000,000 and bought a hell of a lot of stuff.

I had kept my winnings from my 3rd place in my rookie season (Lime Rock Park), and with my other driver’s solo winnings, and £125,000 for coming 2nd in the VRS Endurance Division 8 Championship (The winner of each division gets £1,000,000 in prize money) and with another of my drivers, Daniel Newell, coming third behind me (winning £62,000) I was able to comfortably pay it off…but, now I am able to share my spendings….

1. I bought the Leafield Technical Centre for £10 (it was abandoned, very derelict). This used to be the Head-Quarters of Caterham Formula One Team, but since they went into administration, it’s completely abandoned. The 2 Storey building was ideal for both racing and research

2. I completely revamped the inside with black and gold, rebuilt some walls, and made the place look genuinely attractive again.

3. I bought 5 different cars – and had them painted. Which cost….a lot.

And I can assure you that we are no where NEAR the finish line…this is just the beginning

From Top to bottom:

1 & 2) The livery for the TCR we will be using for Jimmy Broadbent's 24 Hour charity event, the main theme being "#BlueForDrew" 3, 4, 5 & 6) As October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, during the month of October, we will be running pink liveries for both our LMP1 and GTE. The lighter pink has been kindly done by my painter Doug Denise, (DeNise Designs) and the darker one has been done Chris Heighs. 7) This was the Ford that took on the mighty Bathurst 1000, and incredibly took home a 4th place finish

8, 9 & 10) These are our standard liveries