Excelr8, which carried Tom Ingram to the 2022 crown, has moved its squad of four Hyundai i30 N Fastbacks into Dynamics’ facility in Droitwich, from which the West Midlands operation won a total of six BTCC overall titles with Honda machinery in the hands of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden.
The existing Dynamics personnel, including famed technical director Barry Plowman, will also be working on the Excelr8 BTCC project, which was based since its 2019 inception at Brome in rural Suffolk.
While Excelr8’s BTCC and new Porsche Carrera Cup GB programmes have moved to the Dynamics premises, its enormous Mini Challenge presence will continue to be fielded out of East Anglia.
Team principal Neal withdrew his team from the BTCC prior to the 2023 season after the collapse of its sponsorship deal with Halfords, but he and Plowman kept a presence in the series, working mainly with Team Hard.
“We’ve got a facility here which is tailor-made for running race cars, and we’ve still got quite a good engineering knowledge and skill set,” Neal told Autosport.
“Where they were based, it was hard for them to get and attract good people – where we are is in the rich vein of the motorsport community and it’s much easier to get to places.
“Some of our people were not going to be utilised and want to stay in touring cars, so everything made sense.”
Excelr8 chiefs Justina and Antony Williams moved their BTCC squad into the Dynamics workshop last month.
“We first spoke about it in the middle of last year,” added Neal. “I’ve got a relationship with Justina and Antony through Minis when the boys [Neal’s sons Henry and Will] were racing them.
“I get on well with them, they’re nice people, and they’re slightly different people to me.
“They watch every penny and make everything stack up, which I’m probably guilty of not doing!”
Plowman will work in conjunction with Ingram’s long-time engineer Spencer Aldridge, but it is believed that he will transfer to Tom Chilton’s car for race weekends.
“We’ve got things we were trying on the Honda which, having worked with other teams, no one else has even looked at,” said Neal.
“Excelr8 have got some good ideas too, Spencer is excellent, and so are Raphael [Caille] and the guys at Swindon [the Hyundai engine builder].”
It is thought that Excelr8 will stick to four cars for this season, with sources indicating that the driver line-up will remain unchanged from 2023, although there was some speculation that it could be in line for acquiring one of the TBL entrants’ licences from Team Hard after that team collapsed late last year.
Dynamics will also continue to field its own cars in the historic racing arena, including a ‘new’ Porsche 997 RSR acquired for Peter Auto competition.
Team owner Justina Williams said: “We have been evaluating a change of location to improve our logistics and fit in with our team for a couple of years but had struggled to find a suitable location.
“When I started to speak to Matt Neal about the Team Dynamics facility in Droitwich, it became clear that the move could offer far more than just a base for our operation, and could instead be the start of a new partnership.
"The aim is to bring additional skills and experience from Team Dynamics into the Excelr8 fold to strengthen our BTCC programme.”
