NGTC builder Willie Poole reveals level of Snetterton damage

Willie Poole has revealed the work that had to go in to ensure that a full complement of cars made the trip to Knockhill for the latest rounds of the BTCC season.

Poole, who has been responsible for the build of a number of cars on the grid, was forced to burn the midnight oil following the Snetterton weekend to repair damage to cars for both Power Maxed Racing and Triple Eight.

PMR’s Chevrolet Cruze had been extensively damaged after Hunter Abbott was caught up in the two major incidents that took place in Norfolk, which included him rolling into a camera gantry at the start of race three.

Whilst the majority of the bodywork on the car needed to be replaced, Poole revealed that the Cruze had actually come away relatively unscathed underneath the skin, showing the strength of the current NGTC machines.

“The first thing we had to do when we got the car back was to put it on the flat bed to check that the front and rear frame jigs still fit, and they were perfect,” he told TouringCarTimes.

“The cars are built to be very strong and to be as safe as possible, as the last thing you want is for a driver to be injured. It was all panel damage that needed to be sorted, although it was pretty much every panel on the car…

“We worked to midnight every night and were then back in at 7am the next day. I think it was about 10pm the following Saturday when the Chevrolet was done.”

Extensive work also had to be carried out on Ash Sutton’s MG before it was able to return to Triple Eight to be built up for the Knockhill race weekend.

However, Poole admitted that the car wasn’t perfect as a result of heavy contact with the Proton of Dan Welch in race two; contact that resulted in Welch’s team having to build up a spare car to keep him on track this season.

“Ash’s car was involved in a 110mph impact that went right through the chassis from front to rear,” he said. “The chassis still isn’t perfect and is actually twisted; it’s something like 6mm short from left to right. There is more work to be done there, but with the time that we had, we had to work to get the car into a position where it was back out on track.

“It’ll be down to the team as to whether we take it back in to repair further or they might just re-shell the car at the end of the season as it won’t have an impact on performance – it’s something that the team can work around.”

Despite the damage he was forced to work with after the Snetterton weekend, Poole added that the challenge of sorting out repairs hadn’t been the biggest he had faced in recent years.

Instead he pointed to Rob Collard’s dramatic roll at Silverstone back in 2014 as the most problematic he had been forced to deal with in order to ensure the WSR man was able to take his place on the grid for Finals Day at Brands Hatch a few weeks later.

“When Rob had his accident, we only had something like nine days to repair the car,” he said. “That time, the floor pan and the front bulk head was all that we could use again and we had to do all the rest again, including the roll cage. It was a massive challenge, but we did it.

“It’s never good when there is a such short amount of time between races and you have such a large amount of damage to repair. I think I look after something like 19 cars on the grid, so the last thing you want is for four to have an accident together as was the case at Snetterton. I’ll be quite happy if that doesn’t happy again in a hurry!”