Racing
Collins has competed in motorsport since 1994. In 1995 he competed in Formula Vauxhall Junior, finishing third overall with two wins and eight podiums. He also competed in the Formula Opel Winter Series, placing second overall driving for Sir Jackie Stewart who commented in Autosport Magazine, "When you see the likes of Ben Collins in Formula One, remember you saw them here first".
Collins moved onto the British Formula Three Championship in 1996. In 1997, he finished eighth in the standings driving for Fortec Motorsport, and also finished eighth in the Macau Grand Prix. After another year in Formula Three in 1998, Collins raced in the American Indy Lights series in 1999, finishing thirteen in the standings. For 2000, he returned to British F3 to drive for Carlin Motorsport, once again finishing eighth in the standings. He also finished second in the 2000 Masters of Formula 3 race at Zandvoort. Collins has been a test driver for racing manufacturer Ascari during Ascari A10 development, and undertaken testing of Formula One cars.
In 2001, Collins raced in the FIA Sportscar Championship for Team Ascari, with Werner Lupberger, the pair winning at Donington Park and finishing joint sixth in the standings. The team also raced at the 2001 24 Hours of Le Mans. Collins also finished sixth at the 2002 12 Hours of Sebring for Ascari.
In 2003, Collins raced in the ASCAR European Oval racing series with RML, winning six races on his way to being crowned champion. He continued racing in the series in 2004.
Collins returned to sportscars in 2005 to race in the British GT Championship and FIA GT Championship with Embassy Racing. In 2006 he rejoined Ascari, racing in the FIA GT3 European Championship.
In 2007 Collins tested a NASCAR Nextel Cup car at Lakeland Speedway with the Red Bull Racing Team.
In 2009 Collins was named as an endurance driver for Australian V8 Supercars team, Kelly Racing/Jack Daniel's Racing, partnering with Nathan Pretty.
In the 2010 Le Mans Series season, he was racing for RML AD Group. His first race for the team was the 2010 1000 km of Algarve, finishing fourth overall and winning the LMP2 class. He remained with the team for the next round, the 2010 1000 km of Hungaroring, where they finished fourth in both class and overall.
Collins competed in the final meeting of the 2010 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship, driving a BMW for the Motorbase Performance team.
Read more about this topic: Ben Collins (racing Driver)
Famous quotes containing the word racing:
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)