It's only just been confirmed but the Century Motorsports/Marangoni Toyota based street and strip racer, driven by TOCA Ginetta G50 Circuit Racing Championship driver Nathan Freke, recently set a new world bench mark at Shakespeare County Raceway's British Mini Showdown and Public Track Day, to become the quickest and fastest road legal Toyota MR2 outside of America.



In the first of three timed runs on a sunny and warm day in July in front of an unrepentant crowd of Mini enthusiasts Kidderminster Freke lowered the existing European best by just two tenths of a second from 10.41 set in November to 10.2. By the second run Freke blitzed his own European mark in rapid succession with an quicker 9.93 from the 900bhp sports racer and, for the first time ever anywhere, the Century/Marangoni Toyota had just run the first sub ten second quarter mile outside of America.



However, the icing on the cake came in the third and final run of the afternoon when Freke lowered the world mark by five thousandths of a second to a staggering 9.722 with a terminal speed of 148 mph. Well done Nathan, and it happened here at Shakespeare County Raceway.

Motorsport is the foundation of Century Motorsports business with team principal Nathan Freke still active at the highest levels of car racing. Nathan was the 2006 British Formula Ford Champion, and has since tested and raced in F3, Formula Atlantic, Indy Lights and Sports Cars. This year Nathan is contesting the Ginetta G50 Championship as part of the British Touring Car package of support races at most of the UK’s leading circuits where he recently grabbed all 3 race wins at Donington Park. Century have also just put together the quickest Toyota Yaris in the world in a time of 12.6 seconds. Now they’ve just built and run the quickest MR2 in the world! You can follow Nathan’s progress with the Century Motorsports/Marangoni Toyota MR2 by tuning into the teams web site at http://www.centurymotorsport.com.

Photos courtesy of Eclipsephotos.co.uk