Bearing the slogan 'Kaspersky, the fastest anti-virus', a scratch, amateur IT industry team came an amazing 29th out of 80 entrants in the Britcar 24 hours race at Silverstone at the weekend. (8/9 September, 2007). The team beat many professional, domestic and international teams and also BBC 2's Top Gear team, in the endurance event, which is Britain's answer to the Le Mans 24 hrs race.

The IT industry team, consisting of Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of IT security distributor Wick Hill Group, Darron Anley, managing director of reseller Security Partnership, David Joseph, IT Consultant and Paul Armitage from HSBC had only been formed four weeks previously, with some of the initial ideas coming from an IT industry awards dinner in May.

Sponsorship from Kaspersky and Barracuda helped the team along. The team of four, driving a seven year old Honda Integra Type R DC2 with an 1800 cc engine, can only be described as amateur and were battling against proper professional teams driving BMWs, Porsches, Astons, Moslers and GT3.

While the professionals had large spare parts packs, mechanics, private catering and other luxuries, the IT industry team had just the four drivers and three volunteer mechanics, including Adrian Duckenfield, an IT security consultant from Security Partnership. Everyone handled refuelling, back up and pit stop work, with the four drivers taking turns at solo driving stints.

"Ian Kilpatrick commented: "It was a great show of effective IT industry teamwork in action, including three gearbox rebuilds. Getting third in class on our first outing was great and finishing ahead of so many cars in higher classes was a fantastic result. Beating the Top Gear team was just a very nice additional bonus."  

Pic caption: Adrian Duckenfield, from reseller Security Partnership, in the team's Honda Integra. Adrian was a volunteer mechanic in the team.