{"id":7709,"date":"2023-05-18T12:28:17","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T12:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/?p=7709"},"modified":"2023-05-18T12:28:18","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T12:28:18","slug":"zak-brown-i-need-to-race-authentic-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/?p=7709","title":{"rendered":"Zak Brown: \u201cI need to race authentic cars\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At Spa Classic, we sat down with McLaren CEO Zak Brown and Richard Dean, racing a 1989 Jaguar XJR-10 and a 1974 Ford Capri RS3100.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord knows how he manages it all; just the Sunday before there was the Miami Grand Prix, days later he has touched down at Spa, Belgium, the Imola F1 race was yet to be cancelled and at the end of the month, the Indy 500 was waiting. I have no idea how he pulls it off to be everywhere, all the time. How many Zak Browns are there, in fact?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Zak and Richard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A wry smile follows; \u201cIt does involve a lot of travel, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d Zak Brown is many things, but a complainer he is not. CEO at McLaren, overseeing the Formula 1 team and the Indycar effort, and Formula E. Next to that, he is also a co-founder of United Autosports, which is what brings us here today. Brown and Richard Dean go back a long time, meeting at the Jim Russell Racing School in 1991. The American and the Brit kept in touch and decided to start United Autosports in 2009. With outings in different GT3 championships first, United Autosports has grown further, developing in the prototype LMP3 class and is currently one of the driving forces in the LMP2 category. To name just one category where they are currently active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What surprises is that United Autosports has always managed to exhibit their team colours in a very clear way, making their entries easy to identify. In today\u2019s sponsorship-driven racing world, that\u2019s become a hard act to pull off. \u201cOh, but we do have sponsors,\u201d Richard Dean explains. Zak Brown jumps in; \u201cFirst of all, LMP2 is not a sponsorship-heavy series, and as a team, we are not that dependant.\u201d In an era where many teams are quick to come and go, United\u2019s over-ten-years track record speaks volumes on how Dean and Brown have managed to find a long-term way of going racing, without being linked to a manufacturer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Historics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Diversifying has been key to this plan, and today at Peter Auto\u2019s Spa Classic round at the famed Belgian circuit, we see one part of this plan in action; the historic component. Honestly, this part is mostly focused around Zak Brown\u2019s famous race car collection<\/a>, \u201cbut not exclusively,\u201d as Dean is quick to point out. In the historics domain, United Autosports offers both racing support and restoration services. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to keep our staff busy over the winter months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Senna’s car<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe historic racing is my main outlet these days,\u201d Brown says. He is holed up in the office in the team truck, glued to his laptop and phone, only coming out when it\u2019s time to don a racing suit, get a helmet on and go out. Lest we forget, for those who only know Zak Brown from the Drive to Survive<\/a> series on Netflix, the American had a long racing career himself, before moving to the business side of the sport. Karting, the junior formulae (on both sides of the Atlantic), GT racing, he\u2019s seen it all. And in the meantime, he has built up an incredible collection of vintage racing cars; the 1984 Dale Earnhardt NASCAR Chevrolet he let Daniel Ricciardo drive, the 1991 Ayrton Senna Monaco GP winning McLaren MP4\/6 \u2013 \u201cunfortunately, I don\u2019t fit in it\u201d -, Hurley Haywood\u2019s 1988 Audi 200 Trans Am, and on and on. \u201cMostly, it\u2019s cars that came to define my passion for racing when I grew up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1989 Jaguar XJR-10. Photo United Autosports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Jag<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The 1989 Jaguar XJR-10 he brought to Spa today, is one of those cars. It\u2019s one of the iconic cars from the GTP era in IMSA \u201cand it\u2019s an incredibly quick car to drive,\u201d Brown points out. The other car is the 1974 Ford Capri RS3100, good for two victories in that year\u2019s European Touring Car Championship and a car that was driven by a young Niki Lauda. \u201cThis one dates back to before my time, of course, but as just one of three surviving authentic Ford Cologne Capris from this series, it has enormous significance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1974 Ford Capri RS3100. Photo United Autosports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

No replicas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Which begs the question, in a field where replicas set the standard rather than being the exception, why would you risk such a treasure? \u201cMy car has been copied many times over, it would indeed be easy to race a replica. No one would notice, right? The only one who would know, would be me. And that\u2019s just it, I couldn\u2019t do it. I have to race an authentic race car.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mixed fortunes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The race would hand mixed fortunes for Brown and Dean. The first race in the Group C class in the Jaguar lasted just one lap, in race two Zak Brown came seventh. In the first race of the Heritage Touring Cup, Brown and Dean did not take the start. In the second heat, the duo\u2019s race was over after seven laps. Racing, it\u2019s always about ups and downs, with the downs often the reason why we keep coming back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Spa Classic, we sat down with McLaren CEO Zak Brown and Richard Dean, racing a 1989 Jaguar XJR-10 and a 1974 Ford Capri RS3100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,104],"tags":[196,197,155,1094,1095,655,143,1093,132,1092,539,1091,216],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-7709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historic-racing","category-news-pictures-videos","tag-ford","tag-ford-capri","tag-group-c","tag-gtp","tag-heritage-touring-cup","tag-imsa","tag-jaguar","tag-jaguar-xjr-10","tag-peter-auto","tag-richard-dean","tag-spa-classic","tag-united-autosports","tag-zak-brown","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Zack_Brown_Interview_Spa_Francorchamps-13.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7750,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709\/revisions\/7750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7709"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fthb-sponsors&post=7709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}