News Details
Posted date: 5 Oct 2013
2013 Champions!
This year CVM have been sponsoring the Jesus Saves Racing Team as they compete in the UK Classic Formula Ford Championship. Adriano Medeiros drives a Van Diemen RF79 car for the team, which was started by Alex Ribeiro in 1978 when he drove in F1.
The team have had a great season and this last weekend Adriano became the 2013 champion at the final race of the season.
Congratulations Adriano!
The team said: "What a year! GOD is Great! Thank you so much for all the support we had this season. It has been a really good season. Keep praying for us and supporting us. This ministry has done so much this year. It will be really good to see it again next year."
The Jesus Saves Racing Team also have the up and coming Brazilian driver Felipe Guimarae competing in the 2013 British F3 championship with Fortec. He has chosen to race with 'Jesus Saves' on his car.
Here's more on this weekend's victory from Team Manager, Alvin Davies:
"The whole team is very happy but the event was not without a big struggle. The championship leader Mike Gardner simply seemed to concede that he probably wouldn't win the title and didn't turn up despite entering the event! That was crazy in itself.
We tested on Thursday and the car and driver were going very well until a loosening gear linkage caused Adriano to select first gear rather than third when changing up! Boom! - bent valves from a massive over-rev. Richard Owen our engineer spent Friday sourcing parts and rebuilding the engine.
In qualifying on Saturday Adriano was forced to park the car with a distributor problem that advanced the timing almost to the point of melting the pistons. Fortunately his first flying lap was good enough for second on the grid! Adriano's swift action of coming into the pits saved the engine. We were forced to put the miss-firing distributor on the car from Croft. It was a calculated risk, and we had no other choice. We knew that if we came home 6th in class the championship would be ours.
The race started well with Adriano taking the lead at the start, he then started to pulling away at half a second per lap. On lap 6 the Croft miss-fire returned and by half distance we were third but hopeful. At three quarters distance we not only sounding like November 5th but we were loosing serious ground and 6th place looked very questionable, as did the whole prospect of finishing ...
At this point our guests went into a holy huddle of hard and fast prayer in the pit lane while Richard and myself pushed on with timing and signalling duties. Each lap we were going painfully slow and each lap we were being eaten by the opposition. 2 laps to go - 5th place.
The last lap arrived and 4th July joined November 5th!! The car was now sounding absurd. the popping and banging was shocking. The whole circuit knew we might not finish and they could hear us loosing ground fast. The commentator was heard to say "Will Jesus save now?" Adriano was praying like mad while short-shifting, find no power in any gear at all. we were hardly moving - we were living a slow and certain death.
The chequered arrived in perfect timing as I held the pit board out to signal to Adriano that he had managed to hold on to fifth place! The championship was won in true Gospel style - victory snatched from brokenness and defeat by God's grace and certainly not by our own abilities.
As Adriano coasted round on the slow down lap November 5th and 4th July went silent - the engine finally died! It was that close.
As a team we want to thank you all for your help and support this year. It has been an amazing journey that has seen the name of Jesus proclaimed and the Gospel shared. We have much to be encouraged by from our results and from our guests who came, saw and heard.
May Jesus be glorified in all we do."
To find out more about the Jesus Saves Racing Team, see their website, like their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter (@JesusSavesRacin)
Here you can see Adriano racing at Brands Hatch in August when we were able to do some filming with the team.
