Ray Bellm

Ray Bellm (born 20 May 1950) is an auto racing driver from The United Kingdom.

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.[1]

In the early 1990s he moved to the British Touring Car Championship, driving for Vic Lee Motorsport, finishing fifth overall in 1991. Following Lee's arrest and imprisonment for drug trafficking, Bellm and Steve Neal co-founded Team Dynamics in 1993, eventually selling his share in the company to Neal.[2] 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.[3] 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 owned and ran the Silverstone based motorsport equipment retailer, Grand Prix Racewear, having bought a majority stake in 1994.[4]

In 2011, Bellm started the 106 Drivers Club, an event based company to run social road car tours for owners of the iconic 3 seater Mclaren F1. Celebrating milestone anniversaries, the 20th and 25th anniversaries attracted 22 chassis of the 103 that remain.

Racing record

24 Hours of Le Mans results
Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps Pos. Class
Pos.
1984 Spice-Tiga Racing Gordon Spice
Neil Crang		 Tiga GC84-Ford Cosworth C2 69 DNF DNF
1985 Spice Engineering Gordon Spice
Mark Galvin		 Spice-Tiga GC85-Ford Cosworth C2 312 14th 1st
1986 Spice Engineering Gordon Spice
Jean-Michel Martin		 Spice SE86C-Ford Cosworth C2 257 19th 6th
1988 Spice Engineering Gordon Spice
Pierre de Thoisy		 Spice SE88C-Ford Cosworth C2 351 13th 1st
1989 Spice Engineering Gordon Spice
Lyn St. James		 Spice SE89C-Ford Cosworth C1 229 DNF DNF
1994 Bristow Racing
Erik Henriksen		 Harry Nuttall
Charles Rickett		 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR GT2 34 DNF DNF
1995 GTC Gulf Racing Mark Blundell
Maurizio Sandro Sala		 McLaren F1 GTR GT1 291 4th 3rd
1996 Gulf Racing
GTC Racing		 James Weaver
JJ Lehto		 McLaren F1 GTR GT1 323 9th 7th
1997 Gulf Team Davidoff
GTC Racing		 Andrew Gilbert-Scott
Masanori Sekiya		 McLaren F1 GTR GT1 326 DNF DNF

Complete British Touring Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1990 in class) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Team Car Class 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 DC Pts Class
1990 Hawaiian Tropic Ford Sierra Sapphire B OUL
10		 DON
Ret		 THR
DNS		 SIL
DNS		 OUL SIL
DNP		 BRH SNE BRH BIR
DNA		 DON
DNS		 THR SIL 32nd 6 20th
1991 BMW Team Listerine BMW M3 SIL
6		 SNE
2		 DON
6		 THR
7		 SIL
51		 BRH
7		 SIL
4		 DON
1
6		 DON
2
2		 OUL
6		 BRH
1
14		 BRH
2
Ret		 DON
4		 THR
5		 SIL
6		 5th 90
1992 M Team Shell Racing with Listerine BMW 318is SIL
9		 THR
Ret		 OUL
10		 SNE
12		 BRH
Ret		 DON
1
7		 DON
2
10		 SIL
6		 KNO
1
6		 KNO
2
8		 PEM
DNS		 BRH
1		 BRH
2		 DON SIL 13th 15
1993 Team Dynamics BMW 318is SIL DON
Ret		 SNE
DNS		 DON
18		 OUL BRH
1
13		 BRH
2
12		 PEM
17		 SIL
14		 KNO
1		 KNO
2		 OUL BRH THR DON
1		 DON
2		 SIL 29th 0
  1. ^ – Race was stopped due to heavy rain. No points were awarded.
gollark: Hunter gathering also can't support anywhere near as many people as modern agriculture, so that's a consideration under some ethical systems.
gollark: Like I said, you're taking a minor issue and somehow using it to suggest that the entire idea of technological civilisation is bad by completely failing tk consider alternative explanations.
gollark: Oh no, how awful, large progress.
gollark: Also, yes, apparently the global trend is not for those to be increasing. Unless you're being totally US-centric.
gollark: You've jumped immediately to "pretty high suicide rates → everyone is unhappy" and I think you've failed to consider other things.

References
  1. http://cars.mclaren.com/featured-articles/le-mans-memories-ray-bellm.html
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 1 March 2009. Retrieved 13 January 2009.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. http://www.historicrallysport.co.uk/finished-builds/for-ray-bellm
  4. Bio_Fiona Butterfield Archived 16 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine
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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