MARCH 20, 2000

Gorne leaves Reynard

RICK GORNE has left Reynard Motorsport after nearly 20 years working as Adrian Reynard's right hand man. The 45-year-old from Scunthorpe saved the Reynard company from going bankrupt on several occasions with a number of exotic deals, including the sale of 12 racing cars to the United Arab Emirates, to keep the country's fighter pilots from getting bored when they were not flying and later the sale of 40 cars to Mexico to establish a national Formula 3 series.

Gorne went on to lead the Reynard sales team in CART but despite his importance to the company he held only a three percent shareholding. Last year he spent half his time being commercial director of the British American Racing Formula 1 team, in which Reynard had a 15% shareholding, but in the midseason began to work for BAR full-time as race operations director. In January he was given a new role by BAR as motorsport development director with the job of "developing BritishÊAmerican Racing over the longer term".

The intention for BAR was for there to be more than just a Formula 1 team with plans for a number of different teams running in identical livery in different formulae so as to increase the markets targeted and enhance the image of BAT as a major player in global motor racing. That concept suffered when the FIA ruled that F1 teams could not run cars in different liveries but there is no doubt that BAT could still develop the existing network of teams which includes Team Kool Green, which runs a Reynard-Honda package in CART in addition to teams in Indy Lights and Toyota Atlantic. The one area where BAT's presence is not currently being felt is in Formula 3000.