Talking Petrolheads – Ben Tinkler
Ben Tinkler (37) works at Wolfe Manufacturing and regularly races himself. He is the 2016 Brscc Avon tyres Formula Ford pre 90 national and triple crown champion. He also is a racemechanic for the customer cars for which Wolfe Manufactoring provides race preparation and trackside support. We met Ben at the Nürburgring.
‘Racing has always been part of my life. My dad used to race a Triumph Spitfire. I am racing in Formula Ford myself. Some years ago, I was working for an engineering firm, when I was introduced to Andy Wolfe. He’s the owner of one the leading British companies that specialize in preparing historic race cars and he also races them. I landed a job there and I’ve been here ever since.’
‘The nice thing of historic racing for me is that you get to work on many different types of car and different types of events. We’ve got quite a nice variation of cars and I like that. My favourites are sportscars and single seaters, obviously because I drive single seaters myself. Combining that and this job sometimes is a tight squeeze, yes. I am married and have a young daughter and I’m often away. But it’s worked out so far.’
Once I like to drive a classic F3
‘This is a challenging job. We mechanics are as competitive as the drivers, across the pitlane. We always want to make the cars as quick as we can because we want them to win. We want to extract the utmost from the set-up of every car. From an engineering aspect that means that our work is mainly focussed on spending the necessary amount of time in properly building them in our workshop. During race weekends is usually more a matter of preparing them for the races, making repairs and making sure everything works as it should. That’s when the hours you put in back home really pay off.’
‘Today, I am working on a 1972 Lola T290. It’s owned by a well-known driver in historic racing; I mostly work on his cars. He bought the car in 2014, and we’ve commissioned it. I myself made all the suspension parts, the uprights were machined in house. I like this car very much, because I’ve put so much time in it. That’s also one of the nice things about this job: making and fabricating the parts and seeing your car in action. This really is my baby, to be honest.’
‘The owner of this car is a very competitive driver. He really punishes the material to win, but I don’t have any problems with that – that’s what this car has been built for and we want it to be in front, not only because we want the driver to be successful, but also because it’s good for our company and attracts more business.’
‘Obviously you see many dream cars around these weekends. I would once like to drive a classic F3 car eventually, but of course it all comes down to budget. And time management! But well, if you want to do something you really love, you always find the time for it, don’t you? The budget would be more difficult to obtain, though.’
My dad used to race a Triumph Spitfire
‘Is this my dream job? Well, it certainly is necessary that you’ve got to enjoy what you do, because the hours are usually very long and you’re away from home many weeks a year. Some days you think: what am I doing here? But that goes with every other job as well. For me, it’s all about being passionate for racing, loving the competition. Andy, my boss, races as well, which raises the competitiveness of the whole team. When he, or one of the other drivers of our cars win a race, it makes it all worthwhile. That really feels like payback.’
‘But it’s not one of those races that are the highlights of my career so far, to be honest. Yes, this Lola was put on pole a few years ago against bigger cars and that felt wonderful, but my favourite racing memory is from 2016, when I won in Formula 3 at Donington, and we became champions. My wife and daughter were there as well. That was quite a memorable moment.’