Despite half a century of motorsport heritage, with more than 250 championships across the world competing on its rubber, Avon Tyres, a brand owned by Cooper Tire and Rubber Company, only made its debut in the famous endurance race 12 months ago. Unfortunately, after a competitive start, Trackspeed Racing’s Porsche 997 RSR entry suffered mechanical problems while running near the front and it dropped down the order, finishing in 11th place.
This year Avon hopes to prove the ability of its rubber over a complete, flat-out, round-the-clock race duration.
Avon Tyres Motorsport Sales Manager, Brian Davies, said: “Since introducing our new ‘clean oils’ GT tyre last year, more and more teams have been looking towards Avon as a competitive option for races such as the Spa 24 Hours.
“Hopefully, this year, we’ll be able to show our performance over the full course of the race and that will help us to expand and run more cars in 2012.”
The Ecurie Ecosse team will run the Aston Martin DBRS9 that Beechdean Motorsport has previously campaigned in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship.
Meanwhile, another British GT regular, Team Preci-Spark, plans to race with a Mercedes AMG SLS similar to the one they have used in the domestic championship since the start of the year.
After taking pole position on Avons earlier in the month at Spa during its competitive debut in the British GT Championship, McLaren GT has chosen to stick with the Melksham-made tyre for one of its three MP4-12C GT3 race cars for the 24 hour race.
