CAFÉ RACER 76

Road to Le Mans : Team ByKolles

Aux 24 Heures du Mans 2015, Michelin est partenaire de 20 teams que nous présentons jusqu’au début de la semaine mancelle. Si le Team ByKolles débute aux 24 Heures du Mans sous cette entité, la plupart de ses membres sont déjà rompus à l’épreuve mancelle.

Diplômé de médecine dentaire, Dr. Colin Kolles a monté son écurie de course – Kodewa - en 2000 et participé au championnat Formule 3 Euroseries.

En 2005, Colin Kolles a débuté une carrière en Formule Un qui l’a conduit au poste de managing director chez Jordan GP, Midland, Force India, Campos GP, HRT. Il a aussi travaillé ainsi en DTM et fut consultant chez Caterham F1 en 2014.

La première apparition du nom Kolles en Endurance remonte à 2009 avec l’engagement de deux Audi R10 TDi en ELMS et aux 24 Heures du Mans. C’est au volant de l’une d’elles qu’avait débuté André Lotterer au Mans.

En 2012, Colin Kolles est revenu en Endurance (FIA WEC et 24 Heures du Mans) avec le nom Lotus, en partenariat avec Praga et sous licence tchèque. Mais les deux prototypes LM P2 (en réalité des Lola B12/80-Judd) n’ont guère brillé, et pas davantage en 2013 malgré un nouveau châssis T128 conçu par Adess. On se souvient de l’imbroglio judiciaire lors des 24 Heures du Mans 2013…

L’an passé, c’est en catégorie LM P1-L que le team dirigé par Colin Kolles a ressurgi en cours de saison avec une Lotus P1/01, rebaptisée CLM P1/01 cette année et engagée en FIA WEC sous la bannière Team ByKolles.

Les deux premières courses ont tourné court en raison d’une collision à Silverstone et d’un souci technique à Spa. Au Mans, la CLM P1/01 sera opposée aux nouvelles Rebellion R-One motorisées, comme elle, par un bloc V6 turbo AER.

We’ll be counting down the days to the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours by presenting each of Michelin’s 20 partner teams at this year’s race. This June will be Team ByKolles’ first appearance at Le Mans under its present name, but most of its staff have solid experience of the French 24-hour classic.

Doctor Colin Kolles, a qualified dentist, created his first team – Kodewa – in 2000 with a programme in the Formula 3 Euroseries.

In 2005, he started a career in Formula 1 which culminated in the position of managing director at Jordan GP, Midland, Force India, Campos GP and HRT. He also worked in DTM and was a consultant with Caterham F1 in 2014.

The first appearance of the Kolles name in endurance racing dates back to 2009 with the entry of two Audi R10 TDIs in the ELMS and at Le Mans. One of the cars at La Sarthe featured debutant André Lotterer…

In 2012, Colin Kolles returned to endurance with an FIA WEC/Le Mans programme under the Lotus banner, in association with Praga and running with a Czech licence. Its two LM P2 prototypes (Judd-engined Lola B12/80s) failed to make a big mark, and things weren’t much better in 2013 with a new Adess-designed T128 chassis.

Last year, the outfit reappeared in LM P1-L in the course of the season with a Lotus P1/01. It has been rebranded CLM a P1/01 this year and runs in FIA WEC under the Team ByKolles name.

Its first two outings of 2015 ended with a collision at Silverstone and a technical issue at Spa. At Le Mans, the car will face opposition from the latest-spec Rebellion R-Ones powered by the same AER V6 turbo engine.

Voiture engagée aux 24 Heures du Mans 2015

N°4 CLM P1/01-AER – LM P1 : Simon Trummer / Pierre Kaffer / Tiago Monteiro

Palmarès aux 24 Heures du Mans

2009 : 7^e LM P1 – Audi R10 TDI (Zwolsman/Karthikeyan/Lotterer & 9^e LM P1 – Audi R10 TDI (Bakkerud/Albers/Mondini)

‘82 BMW R100 – Blitz Motorcycles

It sounds like an outtake from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or an idea for a Karate Kid road movie. It goes like this – you muster everything you’ve learnt to build your dream bike and enter it in one of the world’s biggest custom bike shows. Then you crash and destroy it after two weeks. You are injured, but you pick yourself up and completely rebuild the bike just in time to enter it into the show, where’s it’s a great success. Along the way you learn about the futility of material possessions and the value of perseverance. Is it a script we’ve been working on around the office while drunk? Or maybe the fevered dream of a bike-obsessed lunatic? Nope. In fact, it’s all in a day’s work for Hugo and the boys from France’s Blitz Motorcycles.

For those of you who might have been off-world for the last few years, Blitz is a custom bike shop based in Paris that was founded by two likely and very hairy French lads, Fred Jourden and Hugo Jézégabel. Known for their charismatic, mix-and-match stylings and a dangerous love of patina, the boys have been regulars on the House of Burnt Pipes for many a year. They also love them those nice BMW bikes. And how.

The Bee-Em here, aptly named the ‘Black Pearl,’ was finished around 15 months ago. It was intended from the get-go to be Hugo’s personal ride. And as anyone creative will tell you, there’s nothing quite like having an open brief with only yourself to impress. As you’d expect, the bike turned out like a dream. The boys were sure it’d make a splash at Baritz’s 2014 Wheels & Waves show. But then…

Fred takes up the story, “For two weeks, Hugo enjoyed his new love. Then, on the very same day we planned to leave Paris for Baritz to take part in the Wheels and Waves ‘pre-run’ meet, Hugo was hit by a car while riding. Actually, he was on his way to get the truck that was going to take all our gear. You can’t imagine the emotions and the disappointment.”

Luckily, Hugo was only slightly injured – a bruised right arm and a dented ~~tank~~ ego. But the same couldn’t be said for the new BMW. “The bike we severely damaged. It was as bad as it could be without having to scrap it. We could have thrown in the towel and taken another bike, but we picked ourselves up and accepted the challenge.”

Four weeks. A total rebuild. Their best bike to date. No excuses. “We had to start from scratch just one month before showing it at Wheels & Waves. And it was representing us, so we wanted it to be perfect. In a way, we built it twice, and we wanted the second version to be better than the first.”

As with most Blitz builds, the tank set the tone for the rest of the bike. In this instance, a Yamaha 500XT with a bespoke cup welded on the front to house the speedometer. The front fork was then lowered by 15cm to pump the stance, and an 18″ front wheel was added from an R65.

Next up, tubing. A set of bespoke, stainless exhaust pipes were added (proudly Fabriqué en France, as the boys put it). Then bars from an R100RS were mounted and things got a little weldy with a new rear loop added to the frame. This was topped off with a brand new seat to match the exact swoosh of the supporting metal.

“Last up was a brand new TCI/AC/CDI system and a matching (and much simplified) rewire,” says Fred. “We added the shiny black powder coating to the frame, fork legs and engine covers to tie things together. Then there was a quick re-jetting of the carbs to match with the custom alloy air filters. The cherry on the top was the vintage headlight from a 1970s rally car. We think the splash of yellow really makes it.”

Inspirational stuff, huh? How’s that famous poem go? “To watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools. And lose, and start again at your beginnings, and never breathe a word about your loss.” But to put mere words to a feat of this magnitude would be damning it with faint praise. Nice work, boys.

[Photos: Gary Jézégabel]

via PIPEBURN

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