This is a picture of Warren Gillespie’s gearbox. Yes, it’s
only got two gears – 1st and reverse. He broke it yesterday and had
to fit his spare. Then he broke that too and took the ‘box out of ‘Maximum
Attack’ team –mate Willie Keaning’s car to fit it into his.
Willie was already out by this time with a dead starter
motor, but the two of them had built these special gearboxes themselves. They
had seen them in Ireland and knew the theory so one night Willie stripped a
standard Corsa gearbox and didn’t leave the garage till he had worked out how
to do it, then he and Warren made their own.
By the way, an autotesting Corsa weighs around 650 kgs while
a Mini will be around 500 kgs, so while the sport at this level is very specialised,
it is still quite affordable, and you don’t need roll cages and sumpguards, race
suits, crash hats or Hans devices.
