OUMF at the Oulton Park Gold Cup 2025 – Race report

The famous Gold Cup weekend marked OUMF’s return to the spectacular Oulton Park circuit after two years - and the racing was as exciting as ever. The beautiful thing about racing historics is its like hopping into a time machine and travelling back to the golden age of racing. We took our Riley racer to compete in the Jack Sears Trophy, and “Little BeWT” the Sebring Sprite in the Dunlop Allstars. Of course, the mighty Ding Boston in the driver’s seat.

In the months leading up to the race weekend, the team was graced by an abundant Haltech care package from our sponsor gods at Race Winning Brands, and Charlie Lemme took the lead in fitting the Elva with this new data-logging tech, which I found of immense interest too. In the meantime the Riley racer and the Sebring Sprite received detailed race prep, followed by spanner checks, and road and engine testing from the diligent OUMF team.

Friday started off smoothly with our fearless leader Ollie Raja-Brown arriving hot foot from his extended road trip to Croatia, and the Riley fitted with data sensors borrowed from the Elva (with some fine tuning), and the van packed and ready to go. The team was split into two: the afternoon crew dedicating the day to final prep and loading, and the evening crew of placement students who were forced to make the adult decision to come straight from work. At soon after 3pm the journey started, but alas, the Sprinter started teasing us with a flashing check engine light, so we stopped at the next services to clear the code with the OBD reader. Once cleared, a few miles of peace were driven before the overloaded Merc cried again for help. This process was repeated and became a cross-country tour of all the services on the M40 and M6, with highlights of interesting smells in lorry parks, and my awe at seeing a random Burger King. But
of course, I was never worried; we were a convoy of mechanics with a van full of tools.

The abysmal motorway traffic, sprinkled with pit stops, stretched a two and a half hour journey to five hours, and due to our late arrival at Oulton, we were forced to set up camp on the grass instead of the hard standing of the paddock. The hungry afternoon crew swiftly unhooked the trailers and zipped through the Cheshire lanes to get to our 20:10 reservation at the Alvanley Arms, a cozy pub popular to the Oulton Park visitors. We broke bread together and shared some laughs, as Ding evidently enjoyed a fantastic plate of lambs liver and bacon, and then teased Charlie Lemme with his overpriced crumbly brownie. Full and happy, we went back to the track, met up with the evening crew, and tried our best to stay “quiet” while setting up camp. Let’s just say that the couple in the campervan next to us ended up moving to the other side of the park. Apologies random couple; it’s really hard setting up a garage, on the grass, in the dark!

​Charlie Lemme and Samuel Cox took me on my first track walk where we studied surface aggregates, elevations, racing lines, and kerbs - translating civil engineering into driver instruction. Although, it would have been nice to see the whole track in daylight, walking a quiet and peaceful racetrack in the dark, that legends like Senna and Lauda had raced on, is a moment I had never imagined I’d share.

The team got up at 6:00am on Saturday morning to find it had rained overnight, and prepared for Scrutineering at 07:00. Spanner checks continued on the Sprite while the Riley had its date with the Scrutineers. The Riley came back to base camp, then unfortunately had a little accident with the trolley jack. After a night of rain, the ground the rear wheels sat on had softened overnight making the Riley slip off the jack as the front was lifted, resulting in an unplanned “aerodynamic enhancement” to the front panel. Luckily the radiator wasn’t damaged, and the team got a useful reminder of the importance of health and safety. A positive spin means the team can learn from fixing the Riley’s bodywork – an occurrence well aligned to OUMF’s ethos of being a safe space to make mistakes and learn from them, because mistakes are the best teacher....you learn most when things go wrong!

After making sure everything was okay, we were off racing!

​Pressure applied by the Riley saw some unforced errors...

Under Tom Reid’s supervision, the Riley put in an impressive lap time of 2:26.321, qualifying first against three other cars in its class on a damp track. I was impressed by Tom’s presence and calmness despite the jacking mishap and we pushed through to get the Riley racing. During the race itself, Ding’s biggest challenge was to relearn the tricky Oulton Park circuit after our long absence. Due to being blocked at the start, Ding dropped to 3rd place in the Leston class, but
as he got more familiar with the track, he took 2nd with his increasing pace. After getting ahead of some traffic, he started gaining 1.5s per lap on the car in P1. Ding looked like a very capable getaway driver – maybe with duffel bags full of brake cleaner and epoxy mastic in the boot! Then on the lap that we expected he’d take P1, he was lined up for the overtake at the Shell Oils hairpin when an unexpected gearbox failure left the gearstick with no connection to the transmission. The result was a disappointing DNF, but with a good best lap time of 2:15.834.

Waving to the fans after securing another podium finish

In the Allstars race however, we all hoped the Sebring Sprite would maintain its unbroken string of podiums. James Biley led the Sprite crew and made a quick decision to rotate tyres and swap the rear ones for a fresh set after qualifying 3rd in its Class, with a lap time of 2:19.919. Up against a very strong field in the race, it started near the back of the grid as an underdog, but Ding knew the track better this time and when the lights went out on the gantry, it started with a dash through the back of the pack to the first corner. I was posted up at turn 2, Denton’s, which is a slight right after Old Hall corner, leading downhill into Cascades, a high-speed, cambered left-hand corner. Little BeWT attacked the corner cleanly; at first showing a bit of understeer but once the tyres were fully warmed, the Sebring was rotating nicely into the corner on each lap, catching the tricky apex, and other racers. Climbing through the field it ultimately finished 2nd in class and 12th Overall in the Dunlop Allstars, with a fastest lap time of 2:13.174. all contributing to a very exciting race by the little Sebring – and another precious podium too.

After the race, we packed up and joined Julius Thurgood at the HRDC tent for the awards ceremony, and the presentation of the Sebring Sprite’s trophy, and we in turn presented him with a bottle of champagne as a ‘thank you’ from the OUMF team for his generous support.

Being a fresher who only joined this summer, I have been elated to join a rare group of clever, fearless, and hard-working young individuals who are extremely proud of their work. I was impressed by the commitment the team showed, driving to the track on a Friday after a week at their jobs. The composure of the senior members making decisions on the fly underlined the value of their real race experience. Becoming part of this extraordinary team has been nothing but a humbling experience because I had to hit the ground running. Sitting beside Ding in the van he reiterated that a lot of young wannabe engineers are all talk when they say they’re passionate about motorsport. Sure, you may have all the knowledge, but true passion lies in the mundane things racing teamwork entails does - like hooking up a trailer, setting up marquees, packing up a van - and asking everyone if they’d like a cup of tea! In other words, success is all about showing up, working together, and getting your hands dirty – and the OUMF team is the epitome of this. As a foreigner, this was my first experience of a proper English road/race trip, and it could not have been more enjoyable than to be part of this welcoming, able and synergistic group of young race mechanics, displaying a precious combination of real race ambition alongside a great sense of fun.

The team after a relatively sunny race weekend

As always, we all owe a massive thank you to Julius Thurgood and the HRDC, and all our fantastic supporters, for giving OUMF the platform and the means to best exhibit how the hard work of these young talented engineers translates into success on track. Nothing beats real race experience, and nothing gets more real than racing classic cars. See you at Castle Combe! And with everything quickly packed away at the OUMF HQ later, they capped off the trip with a
well-deserved trip to ‘Maccies’!

Diego Mendoza, Motorsport Engineering MSc Brookes University