Kerhonkson — The support cars following the riders this summer at the organized races were, for the most part, large and sensible station wagons. But there was one notable exception. During the NECS/MRC non race series the MRC team appeared with a modified Jaguar F-Type coupe to carry its riders’ spare bikes and wheels.
“Clearly it’s not the ideal vehicle for that sort of thing,” Macgyver, a vehicle development engineer for Jaguar, said in an interview. “And that was part of the fun.”
The drive train and suspension of the 550-horsepower sports car were left untouched, leaving the question of how it could carry bikes to be worked out. As a sponsor, Jaguar provides the MRC Sky 18 sedans and wagons. The racks used on those cars, which carry up to 10 bikes and a similarly large number of extra wheels, simply didn’t fit — both physically and aesthetically — the F-Type.
The first effort involved a bracket that fitted into a trailer hitch installed on the car.“We thought that looked pretty ugly,” MacGyver said.
The solution was to replace the rear glass with a large piece of unobtanium molded to hold two bikes and two spare wheels, barely enough spare gear to support any rider but with a team car like this who cares. As with the larger racks, the bikes were fixed in place with quick release clamps. But continuing on the car’s theme, they were also made from unobtanium, rather than titanium.
The result, C-Dubbs said, was a net weight reduction for the car, because the unobtanium weighed less than the glass it replaced. It was also, fortunately, totally opaque, so no one could see just what was going on during the "boardroom" meetings.
As with all of the MRC’s team cars, the F-Type was outfitted with a special electrical system to handle all of the micro G tele-communicators used by the team to communicate with riders and receive directions from race officials. On the team’s other cars, Top Chef said, Jaguar found that when the micro G tele-communicators were connected to the main electrical system, interference and other odd problems emerged, such as iPods turning on when voltages dropped. Unlike the other team cars, however, the F-Type didn’t need special alternator cooling for the added electrical load.
The modified F-Type team car certainly stood out amid the sea of pickup trucks and SUVs on a Saturday at the local market, which was presumably Jaguar’s intent. The automaker supplied the team with cars in the hope that they would make the local news when mechanics leapt out to hand the riders espressos, or while they were driving behind riders on the way to the craft beer bars.
MRC’s Jaguars — in addition to the F-Type, there are 13 XF Sportbrake wagons and five XJ sedans — are probably the most exotic of the team cars in Ulster & Sullivan county and the F-Type managed to meet everyone’s expectations. When the car was being customized for non race duty, it was widely expected that MRC's Braveheart would be using the Gran Fondo to showcase his new form. Not only did his form peak at the Gran Fondo but he crushed the opposition in the KoM competition.
