Metro 140: Days of Plunder

Days of Plunder (1625 words, photos available on request) Copyright John Twigg, March, 2006 john@bkkmetro.com So you think keeping your kids happy costs a packet. Here’s one expat family who have to pay a king’s ransom this year to indulge their son’s passion, and hopefully kickstart a multi-million dollar career. Rakau takes a look at the Grunwell’s daunting task of mounting a challenge in professional motorsports for their school-aged son.

At a recent press conference at Bira circuit, James Grunwell was invited to the stage to talk about his Formula BMW scholarship and his prospects for 2006. The immaculately dressed driver gave a brief introduction, of himself and his Meritus Team, and detailed how he hoped to win the Rookie crown and (with a wry smile) the Drivers crown in this years Formula BMW Asia Championship. You’d hardly realize he was still to young to sit his Thai drivers licence, and that this was his first TV interview.

Grunwell got his first taste of karting ten years earlier when his dad took him for a spin in a tandem kart in Pattaya. After a few rounds, it was clear he liked it so, when Mum wasn’t watching, Dad strapped him in a single seater. With his foot pressed to the floor (no doubt in terror more than exhilaration) he flew down the straight. But without any idea of how to stop the thing, the inevitable happened at the first bend, and when he got home that evening bloodied and bruised, he swore off karting for life… … yeah right!

Now Grunwell is 16, and he’s one of the Thailand’s most promising motorsports figures.

He’s already swooped the domestic Rotax Go-Kart championships, and even before he was old enough to legally drive on the open road he was muscling Mini’s around Bira circuit finishing a credible second in his first ever event. Then last year he stepped up to what is arguably the pinnacle of motorsports in Thailand – the AIM single seater Concept Car – where he consistently placed at the front of the grid. In three years he’d gone about as far as he could locally, and needed to look offshore for a new drive.

It’s worth pointing out that Grunwell never raced a kart until he was 13. His only experience came from occasional weekend drives in a decrepit old second hand kart which his family had acquired from a departing expat in the forlorn hope of capping the money they were already spending on kart rental. Little did they realize that even at this level, motorsports (at least for the parents) is like banging cymbals in a grimy oil drum while ripping up hundred dollar bills.

His first taste of racing came when he took the family kart for a spin during the trials for an upcoming event at Seacon Square. The race organizer recognized his talent and suggested he do a few timed laps. The cynical expressions of the seasoned and clearly well equipped racers turned a little pallid as the farang kid gobbled up pole. He was born to race, and with that realization the last window for the Grunwell family to exit this sport without mortgaging their house had soundly slammed shut.

Images of Tom Cruise in “Days of Thunder”, bouncing around the Nascar circuit spring to mind as the rookie swept to the front of the pack, only to end in a cloud of debris when he jammed on the brakes after taking the checkered flag causing a multiple kart pile-up.

Clearly the whole family had a lot to learn, including James’ Mum who rushed home in a taxi to pick up the spare engine so the hastily recruited mechanic could replace the shattered rear end before race two got under way.

At this point Grunwell was still at school and racing was purely a part-time hobby. The costs were insignificant next to the costs of indulging their daughters passion for horses, so they adapted to life in the pit lane and the vagarities of dealing with people with dubious motives who knew a lot more about doctoring engines than they did. Besides, through business connections, the team had secured a sponsor – Champion Ferodo – who covered pretty much all the direct costs. And it was on the back of this partnership that Grunwell began stepping up through the ranks. In just three short years his international career was shaping up better than anyone could have hoped. It was time to step up a gear... Formula BMW was beckoning.

Mario Theissen, the head of BMW Motorsports describes Formula BMW as “something for kids to graduate to from Karting”, but in reality it’s an entirely different world altogether. It looks and feels just like Formula One, with one-design ‘open wheel’ cars competing for team and individual honours in a series of 14 races in seven Asian countries. It’s also starting to attract pretty high media interest, with more than 156 hours of coverage this year in China alone, reaching up to 220 million people each time. But all this comes at a huge cost…

If mum and dad thought Mini’s and the AIM Concept Car chewed up money, they were in for a chilling surprise. Because the costs just to get noticed in FBMW were almost more than an entire season in karting. Grunwell was lucky enough to be invited to test for the hugely successful Meritus Team from Malaysia, which has churned out champions like Takuma Sato and Narain Karthikeyan, and has a coaching team headed by Alex Yoong. But the invitation was at their own expense… testing costs ran at US$1,700 a day, not including insurance or tires which will set you back $700-800 per set (and last for one session). And you also need to fork out a couple of grand for a Race-approved helmet (without taking into account the custom graphics) and the same again for fire resistant kit including underwear, gloves and boots. And heaven help you if you do have a prang, as the car could cost anything up to US$30,000 to repair.

Having secured the drive the annual budget surges again, with upwards of US$ 150,000 in race fees, car, and engine rental to cough up. And then you’ve got the logistical nightmare of getting the car and the team to 14 races in 7 countries throughout Asia during the course of the year.

Therefore funding is the crucial element to the success of the team, as no matter how quick the driver is, if the team has to cut corners in preparation or training, the results will be hard to come by. It’s not surprising that most successful race drivers today enter

the sports through money or contacts. The F1 grid is littered with children of past champions – Damon Hill, Nico Rosberg, and Nelson Piquet Jr to name but a few – while the Schumacher family owned a karting track. Even 2005 F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso was a motor mechanic on a kart track giving him unlimited access to training. A few, like (former BMW driver) Jensen Button did it the hard way – through private funding – and almost bankrupted the family in the process. So Button became the inspiration for the Grunwell’s So confronted with a massive B10,000,000 tab for the season, and only a handful of minor sponsors who barely gave them enough money to paint their names on the side of the car, the Grunwell’s figured their best option was to seek a scholarship. They punted $3,000 to send James to the BMW drivers school in Bahrain where he competed against some of the best talent in Australasia and the Middle East for the coveted title of BMW Junior Driver.

Apart from contributing about a quarter of the annual budget, the scholarship provides the winners with ongoing education and training from BMW to sharpen their skills throughout the series. It also carries the added benefits of recognition as an official representative of the BMW team at all the events, and even the couple of the F1 gigs which occur concurrently in Malaysia and Shanghai. Of course this rapport with the BMW race fraternity does nothing to hurt his chances of “being noticed” and securing that all-important seat in the BMW Formula One team.

His youthfulness and inexperience showed when he missed on the first try in 2005, but with a few more hours of testing under his belt, and another year of maturity as a driver, he secured one of three spots for the 2006 season. This not only gave him the much needed financial injection, and the chance to improve himself, but a massive confidence boost for potential sponsors of his campaign. After all he still has around B7.5 million in costs to cover.

Already the Meritus management has been instrumental in securing negotiations with several key companies whose names are well known in Thai motorsport circles, and there’s a savvy syndicate of private financiers who are backing the team in return for a share of the earnings further down the track. But there’s a lot of vacant “real estate” on the side of Grunwell’s car, and only weeks until the season kicks off in Malaysia.

Like any investment, motorsports is a bit of a gamble. But who wouldn’t bet on FBMW Asia and Grunwell? The motorsports fraternity in Asia is brimming with enthusiasm and here’s a Thai-bred kid who in just three years has swept the ranks of Thai motorsports and is knocking on the door of Formula One. This makes even 2005 F1 champion Fernando Alonso’s rise to fame seem pedestrian.

Sidebar: Formula BMW Race Schedule for 2006

March 19: Sepang F1 GP, Malaysia May 14: Ansan, Korea June 11: Goldenport, Beijing, China July 23: Sentul, Indonesia Aug 27: Bira, Thailand Oct 1: Shanghai F1 GP, China Oct 22: Taichun, Taiwan