Ray Bellm

Spice SE86; Ray Bellm's car in the 1986 World Sports Car Championship

Raymond "Ray" Bellm (born May 20, 1950 in New Malden ) is a former British racing driver .

Career in motorsport

Ray Bellm came to professional motorsport through historical racing. He celebrated his first successes in 1983 in the Thundersports series, where he finished third overall in the races in Snetterton and Thruxton on a Chevron B36 . The long collaboration with Gordon Spice began in 1984 . Bellm was a founding member of Spice Engineering and competed in sports car races with the team's own designs in the 1980s.

In 1985 , 1986 and 1988 he won the drivers' championship in the C2 class of the sports car world championship . In 1996 he and James Weaver secured the overall standings in the BPR Global GT Series in a McLaren F1 GTR . Ray Bellm competed nine times in his career in the 24 Hours of Le Mans ; his best place in the final ranking was fourth in 1995 . He was also involved in the British Touring Car Championship for several years , finishing fifth overall in a BMW M3 in 1991 .

After the end of his active career, he was chairman of the British Racing Drivers' Club in 2005 and 2005 and for many years ran a company near the Silverstone circuit that sold clothing and other equipment for racing drivers.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1984	Spice Tiga Racing	Tiga GC84	Gordon Spice	Neil Crang	failure	Engine failure
1985	Spice engineering	Spice-Tiga GC85	Gordon Spice	Mark Galvin	Rank 14
1986	Spice engineering	Spice SE86C	Gordon Spice	Jean-Michel Martin	Rank 19
1988	Spice engineering	Spice SE88C	Gordon Spice	Pierre de Thoisy	Rank 13 and class win
1989	Spice engineering	Spice SE89C	Gordon Spice	Lyn St. James	failure	Engine failure
1994	Erik Henriksen	Porsche 911 Carrera RSR	Harry Nuttall	Charles Rickett	failure	Engine failure
1995	GTC Gulf Racing	McLaren F1 GTR	Mark Blundell	Maurizio Sandro Sala	Rank 4
1996	Gulf Racing	McLaren F1 GTR	James Weaver	JJ Lehto	Rank 9
1997	Gulf Team Davidoff	McLaren F1 GTR	Masanori Sekiya	Andrew Gilbert-Scott	failure	Wagon fire

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11
1984	Spice Tiga Racing	Tiga GC84	MON	SIL	LEM	ONLY	BRH	MOS	SPA	IMO	FUJ	KYA	SAN
				DNF	DNF	13	10		9	10
1985	Spice engineering	Spice-Tiga GC85	MUG	MON	SIL	LEM	HOK	MOS	SPA	BRH	FUJ	SEL
			7th	7th	11	14th	9	5	9	DNF
1986	Spice engineering	Spice SE86C	MON	SIL	LEM	NOW	BRH	JER	ONLY	SPA	FUJ
			14th	14th	19th		11	5	7th	14th	20th
1987	Spice engineering	Spice SE87C	JAR	JER	MON	SIL	LEM	NOW	BRH	ONLY	SPA	FUJ
								8th
1988	Spice engineering	Spice SE88C	JER	JAR	MON	SIL	LEM	BRÜ	BRH	ONLY	SPA	FUJ	SAN
			7th	7th	8th	8th	13	7th	4th	DNF	6th	DNF	5
1989	Spice engineering	Spice SE89C	SUZ	DIJ	JAR	BRH	ONLY	DON	SPA	MEX
			DNF	14th	DNF	DNF			DNF	DNF

literature

• Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909-413-06-3 .

Web links

Commons : Ray Bellm  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ray Bellm at the Driver Database