I would like to start by saying a warm welcome to all the Mini Spares customers. My name is James Jenkins, I am 21 and I am going to be writing a regular article for the Mini Spares website which will be all about the Mighty Minis race series. If you read the ‘Cooper World’ magazine then you will already be familiar with my Mighty Minis coverage. The series was set up in 1996 by Rodger Tello and he still runs it to this day. It’s designed as an entry level affordable race series for the classic rover mini which anyone can race in. The cars are pretty much standard road cars stripped out with a racing seat and roll cage fitted. The whole ethos of the series is one of affordability and inclusivity. The cars run a standard 1275cc engine which can be bored out to 1293cc.

Please see an overview of the regulations below:

a 1293cc engine with Minispares supplied pistons

Optional straight cut or standard gears in the gearbox.

3.6:1 ratio differential

Standard MPI or SPI cylinder heads with tripe angle inlet valves and larger sized inlet valves.

MED lightened flywheel.

Standard SPI camshaft.

Optional Yokohama A539 or A048 tyres.

I have been racing in the series for 3 years, having bought the ex-championship winning car, built and raced by Dan Heywood. In my first season I was fortunate to win the Novice championship and finished second in the overall championship. I have followed this up with third place in the championship for the last 2 years. My dad turned 60 this year and decided to join me on the grid, having never done any motor racing before. We built dad’s car over last winter and he has competed at all the races bar the first race of the season. We race at all the major UK circuits and as well as some extremely close and exciting racing the paddock atmosphere is second to none. I will be writing an article following each of the 7 race meetings next season as well as a few articles during the pre-season. These will consist of race reports as well as driver profiles and paddock gossip. I will also cover the ongoing maintenance and race preparation of dads and my car before and through the season and I hope to share live video feed from the races and paddock over the course of race weekends on this site and YouTube.

I race car 32 which is white with a black roof and dad’s car is 64, white with a blue roof. This season sees major changes to the championship. For many years the grid has consisted of two classes, the Mighty Minis and the Super Mighty Minis. From next season there will be one class of Mighty Minis. These will run a standard 1275 engine bored to +20 (1293cc) with straight cut drop gears and either a standard gearbox or a straight cut gearbox. We will be using the Yokohama AO48 tyre. The changes will help to keep the cars affordable and create closer and more competitive racing. The series really is on the up and the good news is that at least 5 new cars are in-build and will be joining us next year. In addition, we are hoping that some of the Portuguese Mighty Mini drivers will be racing with us which should result in grids of 30 plus cars at every race. We had Ruben Veludo join us from Portugal for the last race of this season at Castle Combe and he is keen to compete next year with some of his fellow drivers. As you can probably gather, I can’t wait for next season, it will certainly be the most competitive racing I have experienced since joining the grid. I will have the chance to race against the very experienced Super Mighty Mini drivers like Neven Kirkpatrick and his brother David, who won the championship this year, as well as runner up Greg Jenkins (no relation) and the Mighty Minis winner Sam Slater and runner up Olly Samways. I am sure you will be hearing these names many times during the course of the season. Dad and I are currently working on both our cars. I have Neil Slark (Slark Race Engineering) machining a new engine for me. I have removed dad’s engine ready to send to Neil. Dad is busy working on bodywork repairs on both cars, mine was a result of a last race accident, dads was due to him contacting the barriers! Well that’s about all for now, suffice to say I will be back soon detailing both cars and the preparation prior to pre-season testing at Snetterton. Bye for now.

Many thanks to Tristan and John Creech Motorsport photography for the photos.

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