Motorsport company investment aids success on and off the track

>

Mr Welch’s father founded Denis Welch Motorsport more than 40 years ago and it has had notable success in the UK, Europe, Australia and the Far East.

Whilst building cars it became obvious that older cars needed new components as the originals were no longer available. The company supplies replacement performance parts for classic cars as well as restoring and preparing ex-works cars, specialising in Jaguar E-type and Austin Healey.

Jeremy Welch took over the business 15 years ago and is now sole owner. He began working at the company as a teenager (restoring the works 1965 Lemans Sprite) and has never lost his passion for racing. He personally drove the Healey Endurance car along with the owner, which set 17 national, and international speed records and still holds the UK record for the fastest vehicle over a 100-mile distance in the UK.

When he took over, the company had no CNC machines so to develop the parts manufacturing side of the business he set about acquiring access to original drawings then converting them to modern CAD/CAM programmes.

Quality and supply security were also important; in the old days manufacturing was subcontracted out which meant that new designs were shared with third parties, and quality sometimes varied. Mr Welch found that skilled work on castings was being turned down by subcontractors, so he turned to Haas which, working with CAD/CAM software suppliers, delivered the ideal solution for CNC porting cylinder heads on a Haas HMC horizontal machining centre.

The in-house design and manufacturing facility has over £1,500,000 of parts on the shelf these days. Two thirds of turnover is global mail order to trade and private customers.

Denis Welch Motorsport still prepare race cars, ensuring they are track-ready and transported to the circuit. One recent restoration project was the ex-Andy Rouse 1989 Ford Sierra Cosworth RS 500. Many parts on this age of car are simply no longer available, so they are produced on the Haas machines.

Three Haas lathes, a UMC-750 5-axis universal machining centre and a VF-4SS super speed vertical machine have been added in the last few years: “We did look around the market but nothing rivalled Haas. We felt comfortable investing because we know what we’re going to get, a great product, together with a reliable management and service team. The whole package works for us.

“Having our manufacturing in-house has made a massive difference,” he adds. “We’ve expanded our range considerably and we can now control our own processes and quality. We also have much better flexibility – if a race car has an issue at the 11^th hour, we simply remake the part. We’re taking control of our own destiny.”

He continues: “The training has been exemplary. I’d never written a program, but with Haas’ help I jumped straight on the 5-axis machine. We mainly do 3+2 machining which enables us to use less fixturing and most programming is completed manually at the control using the Haas G254 Dynamic Work Offset function. One of our operators had never used a CNC, but after training with Haas he now writes programs on the ST-25Y lathe using Y axis and live tooling.”

The latest acquisition is an ST40 turning centre, which is currently machining period magnesium wheels and uprights for race Jaguars: “We bought the machine especially for this job and it’s been excellent,” Mr Welch concludes.

Haas Automation www.haas.co.uk

Denis Welch Motorsport www.bighealey.co.uk