Team Ecosse is a Scottish-based racing team, formed in 1996 to compete in the Internet Amiga F1GP Championship. After a hiatus that lasted several years, the team returned to action in 2005, competing in the V8Thunder online championship, using Papyrus' NASCAR Racing 2003 Season simulation.

The team has had a great deal of success at V8Thunder, with many race wins and championships. In the Winter 2006 season, David West was crowned Lites champion and Team Ecosse won the Lites team championship for the second time. This feat was surpassed in the Winter 2007 season, with Derek Howe winning the Inters title, Team Ecosse winning the team championship in both Trucks and Inters, and Steve Smith winning rookie honours in Inters and Trophy.

In 2007, beginning to look beyond oval racing, the team was restructured into two divisions - stock car and open wheel. A touring car division was added in 2008 as the team became more willing to embrace different racing disciplines. A fourth division will be launched in 2009 - sports car.

The team is now over twelve years old. The team currently races at V8Thunder, Race2Play, Gentlemens Racing Club and ICS. In the past the team has competed online at PRS, BeRacing and NTRL, and Amiga F1GP and GP2 offline racing leagues.

Picture courtesy of James Linton

The end of season standings saw Erik finish as the best-placed Team Ecosse driver, in 11th place. Alan was four places behind him, with Paul and Richard outside the Top 30. The team standings saw Team Ecosse - BMW in 7th place, quite a drop from last season's runner-up spot. Having said that, it was still the best RWD outfit. Team Ecosse - Lexus were 21st, the mid-season switch away from the Renault Megane bringing no change in results.

A frustrating season for the team, then, with Alan and Erik already announcing they will not be returning to the series.

12-05-2009 - BeRacing BeTCC
The BeTCC Summer season kicked of at Brno, the first of thirteen rounds. A lot of things have changed since the Winter season. The series is driving on several new tracks, like Eurospeedway, Keimola Motorsport Stadium and Kyalami. In addition, success ballasts are added again, and there are some new drivers who are willing to fight for the championship.

The weekend started good for the Hondas and also the Chevrolet of Jack Keithley. It initially looked like an easy win for Keithley in the opening round, but there was more opposition then expected. After the practice session it was obvious that Keithley would not get this win for free. Kyle Schoeman, who was surprisingly fast had beaten Keithley in practice, just missed out on pole position. Schoeman started second, followed by Valentino Adams with his BMW on the second row.

The first race was quite calm - Keithley drove away from the start followed by Schoeman and Adams. However in the backfield some drivers where struggling to find the grip and a good race pace. Daniel Johnson had a bad weekend at Brno, and he crashed out in Turn 1 and fell back to 15th spot. There where also some exciting fights between Mike Daish and Ryan Mortimer. Towards the end of the race, Adams lost 3rd place to Davey Zoutenbier.

With the Top 8 reversed in Race 2 it promised to be an exciting race with a lot of cars overtaking, fighting and swapping paint. At the start, it looked like Zoutenbier was napping and he lost several positions. On the contrary, Joeri Blootacker raced to 2nd place behind Gav Barker, who had problems to find the pace this whole weekend in his Alfa. In the backfield there was a lot going on - Johnson got spun around by one or two cars and Timo Verhoest also got pushed off the track. Russ Palmer and his Honda Accord Euro R managed to pass many drivers, but at the end bad luck struck him when he drove into a BMW that had spun in front of him, causing a puncture on his tyre.

Meanwhile the Top 5 was separating into two groups with Blootacker, Zoutenbier and Barker. Barker made a mistake, therefore he missed out on a podium finish. Further fighting went on between Blootacker and Zoutenbier, which ultimately went in favour of Zoutenbier. He brought his car home for the win, followed by Blootacker on two seconds and Adams.

The next round promises to have another two exciting races. With success ballast added, other drivers will make steps forward for the podium and again paint will be shared and there will be more fighting for positions!

22-04-2009 - V8Thunder
Looking back, while looking forward, the Team Ecosse V8Thunder winter review.

As with everything, and everybody, the economy has taken its toll on the Team Ecosse Stock Car division. This winter saw painful losses to the Inters team, with Dave Luoto's very noticeable absence, and Thomas Hendrickson being forced to run a part time schedule. Despite the team's struggles and absences, Steve Smith and Jonas Marquez tried to root the team as best as possible, with Derek Howe providing some very needed support when possible.

There were some brilliant highlights to the winter season, with Team Ecosse taking the win at both superspeedways, the first going to Jonas - his first win in V8Thunder - and the second going to Steve. Unfortunately those would be the only wins for the season, though Thomas would score two second places.

The season came down to the final race to determine the driver and team champions, with Steve just 50 points out of first going into the final race, and the team only 10 points out. Alas, it was a heartbreak for the team to miss the title by 5 points, so many little things ended up making a major difference. The future for the Inters team seems very shaky right now, however veterans like Steve and Derek can always surprise us all.

As for Trucks, the season had plenty of ups and downs. As always, the competition provided the usual wreck avoidence as the primary race strategy. The greatest highlight of the season had to be the return of Davey Zoutenbier, with his clean and consistent finishes. It would seem that the more relaxed and cautious Davey, is attributed to his new crew chief and girlfriend. In a related story, there seems to be a shortage of M & Ms in the Netherlands, strangely coinciding with Davey's return to stock car racing! If Davey and his new crew chief are back next season, the team has something to look forward to!

15-04-2009 - Team News
Team Ecosse Challenge 8 - The 'Och aye The Noo' Challenge was held tonight, using the Advanced Trainers from the Open Wheel Challenge '08 mod. As the name suggests, the event had a Scottish theme, with three races held at each of Knockhill, Cowdenbeath and Loch Rannoch. In attendance was Alan, Derek, Neil, Steve, Paul C and Thomas.

The evening got underway at Knockhill, and there were wins for Alan, Paul and Steve, with Alan and Paul coming out on top overall. Then it was time for the quirky Cowdenbeath short oval where, bizarrely, Paul was comfortably the best, winning two races (Steve won the other) and defeating all the team's so-called oval specialists. Finally, Loch Rannoch, where Thomas and Neil won the first two races, and Paul and Steve went head-to-head for the overall title at the final race... Except it didn't quite turn out that way. With his second win of the evening, Thomas came from nowhere to pip Paul by one point overall. A most unexpected end to a great event enjoyed by all.

For full details, see here.

09-04-2009 - Team News
It was announced today that 53-year old Scotsman Jim Fisher would be joining the team at Race2Play. Jim will primarily be racing for Team Ecosse in the Race07/STCC/etc events. Welcome to the team, Jim!

Picture courtesy of James Linton

Picture courtesy of James Linton