Darrian T90 GTR+ – 1.6L EcoBoost
Jeremy’s Darrian is powered by Moose Speed Race & Rally Ltd. 1.6L EcoBoost engine.
April 2022
Report from Moose Speed Race & Rally:
This past weekend, Jeremy Straker and Jack Bowen were out completing in the Ford 1.6 EcoBoost powered Darrian GTR+ on the Corbeau Seats Rally Tending and Clacton, which is a closed road event based out of Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. The event first ran in 2018, and this year was selected as the first round of the British Rally Championship. With an entry of over 120 cars, there was some stiff competition expected.
With 2 short spectator stages along the seafront on the Saturday, the main event was a further 12 stages on the closed roads inland from Clacton, with a combination of narrow and twisty lanes and wide fast and flowing B roads.
The EcoBoost was flawless all day and enabled Jeremy and Jack to set top 15 times all weekend. While Jack has been out competing on pace notes a lot recently (4 out of the last 5 weekends), the last time Jeremy was on a proper closed road event was Wexford in 2017 in his older Darrian T9.
Despite the lack of seat time on closed road events, the pair finished 12th overall, 2nd in class and 3rd placed non BRC entry. There is no doubt the EcoBoost is now on a par with its 2.5L normally aspirated equivalent and we are confident that with more seat time in the car on these types of roads that the results will continue to improve.
Interestingly, we understand that someone was using a speed gun in a few places throughout the day purely for their own interest. Coming out of some of the slower chicanes we appear to be outperforming the R5 cars with speeds being recorded at 69mph for the R5 cars and 71.5mph for the EcoBoost Darrian. Considering the Darrian is only two-wheel drive this is encouraging both in terms of the traction of the Darrian but also the performance of the EcoBoost engine.
We are looking forward to seeing Jeremy & Jack getting some more seat time and posting some more great results through 2022.
November 2021
Jeremy finished 2nd 2WD, 6th Overall and fastest Darrian at the Tour of Eypnt.
Jeremy’s rally report from Facebook
As forecast, the welsh mountains lived up to their promise of rain, rain and more rain yesterday. Despite the wet, we had a fantastic days motorsport and continue to build our pace and confidence over these tricky roads in changeable conditions. I was fortunate enough to secure the very experienced Ian Meakin to navigate and he did an exceptional job as pushing me on (or slowing me up) where needed. Knowing the conditions, our primary goal was to get a finish and come away without a scratch on the car heading into the winter. We were delighted to come off stage one 6th fastest, a position that ultimately we managed to retain to the finish. Reflecting at the end of each stage, and now watching the in car, there is easily 15+ seconds a stage to come through increased confidence and local knowledge which will put us right on the pace. Our only issue was on Stage 4 where the heavens opened and we severely misted up causing us to need to back off significantly – ultimately it did not cost us a position in the overall rankings and something we will put down to learning in terms of managing airflow into the new car. The Darrian was a pleasure to drive, the Michelin MW1 tyres were exceptional and the Moose Speed Race & Rally Ltd. Ecoboost engine developed in partnership with SBD Motorsport Ltd continues to be mighty impressive (100% up there with the best 2.5L normally aspirated engines) . Massive thank you to Mark Straker and Tim Duffee for servicing and of course to the organisers and the amazing marhalls who stood outside through all those conditions so that we can get our kicks – we would simply not be able to compete without you and it is never taken for granted – thank you!
August 2021
Well done to Jeremy & Mark winning the The South Downs Stages at Goodwood in Jeremy’s Darrian powered by Moose Speed Race & Rally Ltd. 1.6L EcoBoost engine. It was very close battle with the R5’s and Millington engined Escorts & Darrians.
Jeremy at Goodwood, August 2021
Picture: Colin Torkington
Jeremy’s rally report for Goodwood from Facebook:
Long post warning….I was too exhausted last evening to write anything, but we had a successful days motorsport coming away with 1st overall! After having spent 18 months building the new car, and then polishing for the next 18 months (during lockdown), we got out for our second rally yesterday. No more teething problems and a great battle all day.
We nearly retired several times during Stage 1 alone, the rear tyres were too old which caused several interesting moments, and then I turned in too early around a gate post and managed to rip off the sill – it felt terminal but was only cosmetic damage. If I had turned in a fraction of a second later it would have been the rear wheel and game over! I put it down to being rusty after so long out of the seat. Remarkably we came off stage 1 in 6th and only 5 seconds off the leading car. The top 6 remained within seconds of each other all day.
On Stage 6 we put in a great time (and others made mistakes) and managed to go from 6th to 1st, a position that we fought hard to maintain through until the end. We were exchanging times with Ian Hucklebridge all day and he keep the heat on until the very end. We headed into the last stage 7 seconds up on Ian. My strategy was to drive to the same stage time as the prior stage, and let Ian do his thing – perhaps take 3 out of me or maybe push too hard and make a mistake. I backed off too much and Mark (my brother who navigated for me) warned me of this half way through the stage so we consciously pushed hard from there. Thanks goodness we did as Ian was determined to win it or bin it, and took back 5 seconds from us leaving us taking the win by only 2 seconds over the day! Outstanding stage, well done Ian.
Mark Straker does tend to suffer from motion sickness when navigating, and he kindly displayed these symptoms on most stages filling his collection of resealable freezer bags! Luckily the intercom feed into the in car camera is broken so you can’t hear the sound effects. Thanks for sitting in with me for your last ever rally as a navigator.
Many highlights from yesterday! 1st win in the new car, at a venue where I navigated in my first ever rally next to my Dad around 30 years ago, and the first win for the restricted rally spec Ecoboost engine that my brother Mark Straker at Moose Speed Race & Rally Ltd has been developing in partnership with Steve at SBD Motorsport Ltd. You can see from the times that were we on par with the Millington powered Darrian all day at a venue that is a lot to do with raw power. A VERY impressive engine that pulls like a train. More to come from it I am sure but a real contender of an engine now.
A BIG thank you as ever to the sponsors, organising crew and marshals without whom we simply would not be able to complete. We all competed in memory of Robert Foote who would have been at the event this week had the terrible events at Brands a few short weeks ago not happened.
A bit of repair work to the car needed, then hopefully off to the Mewla in Wales in a couple of weeks time!
