Ray Bellm

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Ray Bellm (born 20 May 1950) is an auto racing driver from Britain.

He began his racing career in 1980, running in Historic racing series and winning the British Historic 2L GT class in 1983 and 1984 driving his Chevron B19 sports car. He made the move to modern sports car racing in 1984, driving for Gordon Spice. The pair would found Spice Engineering in 1985 and construct Group C chassis.

As part of the Spice team, Bellm would win the World Sportscar C2 Championship in 1985, 1986 and 1988. He was also able to share a Le Mans win with Gordon Spice in each of those three years, before finally leaving the team in 1990. In the early 1990s he moved to the British Touring Car Championship, finishing fifth overall in 1991 and co-founding Team Dynamics in 1993.[1] He won the International GT championship in 1994, and the BPR Global GT Series in 1996 driving a McLaren F1 GTR to 11 wins in two years. He also won the 1991 Willhire 24 Hour at Snetterton in a BMW M3 co-driven with Kurt Luby and Will Hoy.

Since then he has returned to Historics, including running the Le Mans Classic in 2004 and 2006. He also turned to rallying coming sixth in the 2000 London-Sydney Rally and in 2005 won three rounds of the British Historic Rally Championship in a Mk1 Ford Escort. In 2005 he contested the British round of the World Rally Championship in Group N classed car finishing seventh. In 2006 he finished sixth in Finland and twelfth in Rally Great Britain.

He has served as chairman of the British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC) from 2004 to 2005, and was responsible for negotiations with Formula One Management which resulted in the successful resigning of the British Grand Prix in 2005.

Bellm also ran the Silverstone based motorsport equipment retailer, Grand Prix Racewear, having bought a majority stake in 1994.[2] This has now been sold and was later run by Martin Hines, owner of Zip Kart.[3]

References

  1. http://speedhunters.com/archive/2009/01/02/retrospective-gt-gt-btcc-super-touring-years-pt-1.aspx
  2. Bio_Fiona Butterfield
  3. 2010 Grand Prix Racewear catalogue

External links

Sporting positions
Preceded by
Thomas Bscher
John Nielsen
BPR Global GT Series
Champion

1996 with:
James Weaver
Succeeded by
Bernd Schneider
(FIA GT Championship)


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