About
Dan Boardman: British Rally Driver
Dan Boardman, from Manchester, established Boardman Motorsport in 2001. Dan started competing in his self-built Peugeot 205 and since then has competed in Subaru Impreza, Peugeot 206, Suzuki Swift and Ford Fiesta ST rally cars with great success in various championships including the 205 Challenge, Fiesta Sporting Trophy and British Rally Championship.
"Another class win in the Rally Isle of Man by 11minutes over reigning british champion, (175 stage miles over 2 ½ days) where he also finished ahead of cars 2 classes above him."
Ultimate goal : British Rally Champion
Dan has worked extremely hard over the past 10 years to follow his dream of being a professional rally driver.
"His driving increasingly turns heads; spectators applaud his crowd pleasing sideways style."
He has developed the support of National Press who regularly feature previews and reports of his success at each rally.
He is continually covered in National Motorsports press and on Rally Isle of Man he attracted the attention of 2 further tyre sponsors.
Daniel is an automotive/ motorsport engineer by profession and has a wealth of experience from his time at various sports cars manufactures including TVR Sports Cars where he lead the TVR Sagaris Project with Peter Wheeler (as quoted by Jeremy Clarkson (“the best TVR ever made”), Ginetta Cars, and a number of race and rally teams.
At 8 years old Dan was racing model cars and spent a lot of time helping out at his Dads salvage yard, uncle’s mot garage and even worked in a scrap yard.
After obtaining a HND in Engineering at Preston collage Dan went to New Zealand to work in a busy service station where he ended up building and running the owners Subaru Rally Car. Dan went on to co-drive his first rally, compete in the 1999 Rally of New Zealand and manage the team through the 1999 season. His passion for rallying led to the success of the team, competing in twice as many events and achieving their best results to date, but Dan always had an eye on the driver’s seat.
At the end of 99 Dan decided he needed some serious qualifications so came back the UK the study Motorsports Engineering at the University of Central Lancashire. The University had just bought a Classic 1989 Raynerd Formula Ford which was in poor condition. Between lectures, rugby and the pub Dan and his class mate Alex rebuilt the car for the following season. Having known very little about racing as opposed to rallying Dan managed the team to their first Championship Victory in its debut year which the team continued to win for the following 4 years.
Meanwhile Dan had started competing with his own rally team and won a rally scholarship. Dan has built various rally cars and successfully competed in the Fiesta Sporting Trophy and Peugeot 205 challenge. Has also worked with Juno Race Cars and even for and endurance stock super bike team.
After a successful interview with the late owner, Peter Wheeler, Dan’s placement year was with TVR Sports Cars in Blackpool. For Dan it was an incredible place to work he was able to get involved with everything from test driving on track days to research, development, production and design. Dan worked on the Tuscan R, Typhon, T350, Tuscan and Tamora and even packed in a season of the weekends as a race engineer on the famous 900bhp TVR Speed 12.
On return for the final University year Dan was appointed technical director for the successful, Formula UCLAN, Formula Student project that won best British design and best new comer.
In 2003 Daniel returned to TVR to start his professional career where he was to head up the latest project. "On my second day at TVR, Peter turned round and said “I want a road track car based on the T350 but 2 inches wider and it’s called the Sagaris.” and then walked off!"
Dan led the project from design to production and worked in all departments relentlessly pushing his obsession for attention to detail. Dan would ensure everything fitted and worked better than the last model. At 23 years old this was no easy task with a factory full of northern, hard nose, set in their ways but of course very talented blokes. Dan designed the suspension, chassis, fuel system and active bonnet system to name a few. Dan loved driving of course and worked with a number of manufactures and vehicle dynamics experts to tune the ride and handling or, vehicle dynamics, being damper travel, the damping, bumpstops, static chassis setting, tyre manufactures, tyres pressures, bump steer and geometry. Dan and the team tuned aerodynamics of the, spoiler, venturi and splitter at Miras wind tunnel. Dan finished with road and track testing and to develop one of the best TVR’s ever built. Dan took the prototype to meet Jeremy Clarkson for filming on BBC’s Top Gear.
“TVR was a fantastic place to work as I had a rare opportunity to be involved with all areas of the car and business, from hands on shop-floor, styling, mould and paint shop to production, chassis shop, design and of course road and track testing."
Since TVR, Daniel has been offered work with LOTUS as a consultant in India, General Motors as Chief Vehicle Dynamics Systems Engineer (based at Milbrook test circuit), Bentley, Land Rover and Tesla.
In 2006 Dan set up his own engineering design and manufacturing business www.bmsdesignltd.co.uk.
In 2007 Lawrence Tomlinson asked Dan to join Ginetta along with Marcus to develop the Ginetta G50 race car. They blank sheet designed and developed the G50 and built 20 race cars in just 8 months.
In 2008 Dan decided to spend the time developing his engineering business and also runs his rally team www.boardmanmotorsport.com that have competed in various UK and International rallies.
In 2010 Dan is pushing his engineering business forward as a “one stop shop for all engineering requirements” to all sectors from aerospace and motorpsorts to oil and gas and petrochemical.
In his spare time he runs the BMS rally team which he works with a number of customers running and preparing cars and would like to branch out into race team management for potential clients.
Dan has another exciting business venture which has been keeping him up late for the past 12 months. Its internet based and he claims it will help people communicate in a new way.
Dan is always keen to find new business partners and explore new territories...
Want to know more?
Please email the team info@boardmanmotorsport.com