Force Motorsport Overview & History
Force Motorsport is situated just 10 mins from Wombwell Kart Circuit in South Yorkshire, and is owned and operated by championship winning kart driver Jordan Baines.
Force Motorsport started in 1993 and was founded by John Davies – initially preparing engines for his son. John’s efforts were recognised by Martin Hines of Zip Karting and Lewis Hamilton who soon followed suit and had John preparing his race engines and Force Motorsport have been powering champions in karting for years. (Read more about the how it began from John Davies himself below).
In 2015, John handed over Force Motorsport to Jordan Baines – he has taken over the running of Force Motorsport with pride and still continues John’s legacy by winning Championships in many events in the UK, Europe and the UAE.
Meet Jordan Baines
Jordan started his karting career at the tender age of 5 at indoor karting events. As the minimum race age back then was 8, Jordan spent time testing a cadet kart at Wombwell Karting aka South Yorkshire Kart Club before he could make his race debut. Having never seen the circuit at Rowrah in Cumbria, he finished 12th out of 32 runners in his first race, winning the novice cup for as the highest place novice. The following year he competed at Wombwell and Fulbeck, finishing second in both championships.
In 2009, Jordan got his first taste of Force Motorsport power – little did he know he’d go on to own the company! Setting the fastest lap at Fulbeck, a record which stands today. In 2010 Jordan moved onto Rotax Mini Max winning the championships at both Wombwell and at Fulbeck. Jordan continued his winning streak in 2011, in the TVKC Championship at PFI and placing second in the Northern Kart Federation Championship. 2012 saw Jordan enter Super One, but with a lack of funds, he had to drop out mid-way through the season, even though a top five championship position was on the cards from his early running.
Moving up to Junior Max in 2013, Jordan started being involved in driver coaching, advising on kart set-up and driver tuition, he finished the season as Vice Champion at TVKC in the Junior Max Championship that year, just 1 point away from the overall win.
2014 saw Jordan concentrate full-time on kart preparation and driver coaching, winning the Wombwell Kart Championship in both Honda and IAME Cadet. Supporting others and achieving more wins spurred him on, he went to work with John Davies at Force Motorsport, gaining more knowledge on the engineering side of motorsport and being trained by one of the best Engine Prepares in the country. John Davies saw potential in Jordan and entrusted him to keep his legacy alive.
Quote from Jordan “I’m lucky that I love what I do at Force Motorsport, I get more of a kick helping a driver to go quick than I did winning races and I have a great team around me and together we make it happen. Seeing Force Motorsport power champions from Club Championships to the British really does give me a buzz. I like to think the set-up we have at Force is different than most. We are the only kart engine tuner in the UK to have a rolling road dyno for kart engines, ensuring that the power output we can achieve on the dyno is representative of what you get on the track. We also take our time to ensure every engine that leaves us is a better than when it arrived. We have a network of suppliers and manufacturers through the UK and Europe, so we are always ahead of the curve with new development in kart engine tuning”.
John Davies tells us how it began:
It all started in 1993. My son was racing in cadet karts at Rye House on the circuit with Lewis Hamilton – he was a novice, having just turned 8 and his driving rather enthusiastic which resulted in him crashing into my son Jonathan, his kart ending up on top of Jonathan’s. I untangled them (no one hurt) and set them off round the track again. After the race I had a conversation with Tony (Lewis’ father) suggesting he might calm Lewis down a bit!
In these early days I was preparing Jonathan’s motors as a hobby. However, the following year, Martin Hines (ZIP) was looking for the best engine builder to build cadet motors for his son Luke. Martin sent out one new cadet motor to each of the country’s top engine builders with the message that whoever produced the fastest motor would get the contract to prepare Luke’s engines. It turned out that Martin had heard of me and sent me a motor as well.
The motor I prepared for Luke turned out to be the best one. This was a big turning point for my engine building career. Up until now I had been a senior manager in the construction industry, preparing the motors as a hobby. All of a sudden I had people asking me to prepare their motors on the basis that, if they were good enough for Martin Hines, they must be good for them.
This was a life changing moment: I left the construction industry to turn my hobby into a job, which became my life.
Two years had now gone past since first meeting Lewis, by now he was winning races and championships. I thought it would be good for business if I could tempt Lewis to race on our motors. I had a word with Tony about try some of my motors, but he was very committed to John Button (Jenson’s Dad) as he prepared Lewis’ engines. After a lot of persuasion he took up the offer – fortunately for me. Tony and Lewis liked the motors and Lewis switched over to Force Motorsport engines, this was the start of a wonderful working relationship of over 4 years where we supplied Lewis with his power and went on to win many British Championships”.
