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Meet the staff

 
Steve Broughton

Steve Broughton

When I left school I started work at British Aerospace and met Dick. During the year's he was rallying I used to help him out preparing his car and began to tune his engine. When Dick gave up rallying in 1986, I decided to give it a go myself (so it's all Dick's fault). My budget was quite small and I used to rally a Chevette, spending all my waking hours and every penny of my income just to go and compete whenever I could afford it. I used to buy components and even engines of of various companies.

As time progressed, I began building my own engines. With the knowledge I had gained working at British Aerospace and from a large majority of my friends who still worked there, I found I could build engines every bit as well as the ones I had been buying.

As my knowledge increased, so did the performance of my engines. Unfortunately my pocket would not always allow me to spend what I wanted to and then in 1992 the business I was currently working in began to fade, so I decided the only other interest I had was in motorsport, so I bit the bullet and started SBD.

The first 6 months were very hard and found I was making little if any money, but as the year progressed a few people I had met and spoken to were prepared to let me build some engines for them. This I did and subsequently they did extremely well and on some occasions beating other well established engine builders. This got SBD noticed and over the next year my work took off and since then I never really looked back. We now do work for works teams, teach programming and I get a regular chance to travel all around the world programming various exotic engines for different companies.
I must say that coming to work is extremely enjoyable and although I could probably earn more money elsewhere, I would say there is probably very few people that could have a job such as mine.
Steve at Castle Combe March 2009. Picture:Steve Wilkinson
Steve at Castle Combe March 2009. Picture: Steve Wilkinson

Carole Torkington

Carole Torkington

When I joined SBD, it was an obvious move for me, because my spare time at home was taken up with family coming around to repair, rebuild or redesign parts of the rally cars that we store in our garage.

I have lost track of the hours spent making tea, sandwiches and offering a spare hand to hold the lead light when things just won't go right. Back in the 'good old days' of events at Goodwood, it was always my job to video the excursions into the bushes or across the grass of the various cars taking part, in between making more tea and cooking on a disposable barbeque in the pouring rain. I think you could say the idea was 'if you can't beat them, join them' when coming to SBD.

 

Carole at Lydden Sprint. Picture:Colin Hutchings
Carole at Lydden Sprint October 2008. Picture:Colin Hutchings

Kim Kingham

Kim Kingham

When I joined SBD in 2002, it was only to pack & unpack parcels when we were busy, however my job has gradually changed over the years. I now maintain the web site, produce our catalogue, design all the adverts & leaflets for events & the Autosport Show, take photos of the cars at events.

Although I work part-time, my hours are usually to suit whatever job that needs doing at the time, whether it's finding out last minute information or collecting that all-important bit from the local supplier!

I was Steve's tyre-warmer in the OMS for 3 years, winning the Chater Lea Ladies Trophy at the Brighton Speed Trials & British Sprint Patsy Burt Trophy in 2006. Unfortunately I had a major accident at Cadwell Park in 2006 & have since retired from competing. I still come to most events with Steve (usually as the chauffeur!) to act as pit crew & photographer.

Kim at Llandow. Picture:Steve Wilkinson
Kim at Llandow Sprint July 2006. Picture:Steve Wilkinson

Craig Sampson

Motorsport has always been an interest of mine, but I initially discounted it as a career as most people that I spoke to suggested that the industry was simply to hard to get in to, luckily my school boy arrogance paid off as I decided that I could make a go of it, my expected GCSE results came in which got me the position at Windsor college for a BTEC National Diploma in Motorsport Engineering.

I spent two fun years "studying" for my National Diploma, which mainly consisted of building a mini-cross car with my classmates as our group project, we then competed at several events with this car.

Following on from this in 2002, I enrolled on an HND in Motorsport Engineering course at Brooklands College. In my first year I had a two weekwork experience placement, I was lucky enough that Steve accepted me at SBD, I enjoyed every minute of my two weeks & it would seem that for some strange reason Steve wanted me working for him as I was told that if I ever needed a job, to get in touch! Soon after this I took Steve up on his offer and started working part time for him whilst at college.After my HND I decided to do a final full time year at Kingston University in order to achieve a status of BEng In Motorsport Engineering, I continued working at SBD during this time, which gave me vital real world experience in the industry. I followed up my BEng with a final part time year at Kingston in order to attain a Degree with Honours.

Since the end of 2005 I have been working full time at SBD, during which time my tasks have been extremely varied, but always interesting and as my knowledge and experience have grown, so have the responsibilities that Steve has given me. I have been involved in several development projects in my time at SBD, and have spent many hours building, setting up and developing our current Sprint cars, the Duratec powered Westfield and the SBD OMS.

Working at SBD often involves many late nights and working weekends to keep on top of the work load and to update our own Development cars, these are used for testing new products and systems before releasing to our customers, but the days never drag as I enjoy every hour of it (most of the time anyway!)

In 2008, I was lucky enough for Peter Hayter to offer me a couple of shared drives in his 2.0 XE powered TP292 Westfield, this was extremely enjoyable ending with my first FTD at Eellmore, beating a Metro 6R4 in the wet! This year working the long hours has paid off as I will be guest driving the SBD Westfield at several rounds with Matt Hillam, as well as being Steve's official test dummy for the OMS at test days such as Curborough.

Craig at Pembrey 2010. Picture:Kim Kingham
Craig at Pembrey sprint, June 2010. Picture:Kim Kingham

Zoe Kingham
Zoe Kingham
Whilst I was at college, I'd been coming to the events to help out with the OMS & sometimes to act as Peter Hayter's 'pit bitch' for his Westfield. However once I finished my National Diploma in Animal Management, I decided to take a major career redirection when Steve offered me a job at SBD!

My job involves looking after the stores, packing orders & most importantly going down to the shop for more chocolate biscuits! I am enjoying learning about the engines & the preparation of the racing cars for the events.


Dennis Early
Although I should be officially retired, I have been a toolmaker for nearly 50 years and the thought of not doing the job I love, makes me very sad. So when my daughter Carole, mentioned that Steve could do with some help with designing and testing prototype components, I didn't need asking twice.

I now work for Steve on a part time basis, doing just that. There are many aspects of the job I enjoy, but my favourite part would be designing and producing the tooling for making many of the special components from scratch and then seeing the finished article tested and running on engines, before being sold to the retail customer. I get a great deal of job satisfaction, when I visit the Autosport show and see components that I have made, displayed on our engines.

Dennis Early
Vauxhall 2.0L, 1.6L & 1.4L | Ford Duratec | Suzuki Hayabusa

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