Raymond Anthony Bellm (born 20 May 1950) is an racing driver from the United Kingdom.

Driving career

He began his racing career in 1980, running in historic racing series and winning the British Historic 2-litre GT class in 1983 and 1984 driving his

Chevron Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock ...

B19 sports car. He made the move to modern

sports car racing Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Broadly speaking, sports car racing is ...

in 1984, driving for

Gordon Spice Gordon Spice (18 April 1940 – 10 September 2021) was a British racing driver who competed in both sports cars and Touring Car racing in the 1960s and 1970s, before starting Spice Engineering with fellow racing driver Ray Bellm in the 1980s. ...

. The pair founded

Spice Engineering Spice Engineering was a British racing team founded by driver Gordon Spice with Raymond Bellm in the early 1980s, later becoming a successful sports car constructor in 1986. They competed in the World Sportscar Championship in Europe as well as ...

in 1985 and construct

Group C Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for touring cars and ''Group B'' for GTs. It was designed to replace both Group 5 special production cars (closed top touri ...

chassis. As part of the Spice team, Bellm would win the World Sportscar C2 Championship in 1985, 1986 and 1988. He was also able to share a Le Mans win with Gordon Spice in each of those three years, before finally leaving the team in 1990. In the early 1990s he moved to the

British Touring Car Championship The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by TOCA. It was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and was renamed as ...

, driving for

Vic Lee Motorsport Vic Lee Racing (VLR), formerly Vic Lee Motorsport (VLM) was a UK auto racing team, most famous for running BMWs and Peugeots in the British Touring Car Championship, and most infamous for the drug-related convictions of its owner Victor "Vic" L ...

, finishing fifth overall in 1991. Following Lee's arrest and imprisonment for drug trafficking, Bellm and Steve Neal co-founded

Team Dynamics Team Dynamics Motorsport is a UK-based motor-racing team based in Droitwich, Worcestershire; best known for their successes in the British Touring Car Championship, including winning the Overall Drivers title in 2005, 2006 and 2011 with Matt Ne ...

in 1993, eventually selling his share in the company to Neal. He won the International GT championship in 1994, and the

BPR Global GT Series The BPR Global GT Series (sometimes referred to as the BPR Global GT Endurance Series or simply abbreviated as BPR.) was a grand tourer-based sports car racing series which ran from 1994 to 1996 before becoming the FIA GT Championship in 1997. The ...

in 1996 driving a

McLaren F1 GTR The McLaren F1 GTR is the racing variant of the McLaren F1 sports car first produced in 1995 for grand touring style racing, such as the BPR Global GT Series, FIA GT Championship, JGTC, and British GT Championship. It was powered by the nat ...

to 11 wins in two years. He also won the 1991

Willhire 24 Hour The Willhire 24 Hour was an endurance race for production cars held at Snetterton Motor Racing Circuit in Norfolk, England between 1980 and 1994. Over the years, the race included both sports cars and saloon cars. Latterly, it was contested by ...

Snetterton Snetterton is a village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. The village is about east-northeast of Thetford and southwest of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of . The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 201 people living in 74 h ...

in a BMW M3 co-driven with

Kurt Luby Kurt Luby (born 6 March 1963 in Bolton, Lancashire) is a former British auto racing driver who now works as a motorcycle dealer in his hometown of Bolton. He first entered racing through karting in 1978, winning seven championships up to 1987. In 19 ...

and

Will Hoy William Ewing Hoy (2 April 1952 – 19 December 2002) was an English racing driver and the 1991 British Touring Car Champion, the highlight of a 20-year career in motor racing. Biography Born in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, Hoy did not begin racing ...

. Since then he has returned to historics, including running the Le Mans Classic in 2004 and 2006. He also turned to rallying coming sixth in the 2000 London-Sydney Rally and in 2005 won three rounds of the British Historic Rally Championship in a Mk1 Ford Escort. In 2005 he contested the British round of the

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...

in Group N classed car finishing seventh. In 2006 he finished sixth in Finland and twelfth in Rally Great Britain. He has served as chairman of the

British Racing Drivers' Club The British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC) is an exclusive invitation-only members club for racecar drivers who are judged to have achieved success in the upper levels of motor sport for a number of seasons. Except under exceptional circumstances, me ...

(BRDC) from 2004 to 2005, and was responsible for negotiations with

Formula One Management The Formula One Group is a group of companies responsible for the promotion of the FIA Formula One World Championship, and the exercising of the sport's commercial rights. The Group was previously owned by Delta Topco, a Jersey-based company ow ...

which resulted in the successful resigning of the

British Grand Prix The British Grand Prix is a Grand Prix motor race organised in the United Kingdom by the Royal Automobile Club. First held in 1926, the British Grand Prix has been held annually since 1948 and has been a round of the FIA Formula One World Ch ...

in 2005. Bellm also owned and ran the Silverstone based motorsport equipment retailer, Grand Prix Racewear, having bought a majority stake in 1994.Bio_Fiona Butterfield
In 2011, Bellm started the 106 Drivers Club, an event based company to run social road car tours for owners of the iconic 3 seater Mclaren F1. Celebrating milestone anniversaries, the 20th and 25th anniversaries attracted 22 chassis of the 103 that remain.

Racing record

24 Hours of Le Mans results

( key)

Complete British Touring Car Championship results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1990 in class) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap) # – Race was stopped due to heavy rain. No points were awarded.

References

External links

Brief career summary at btccpages.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellm, Ray 1950 births Living people British Touring Car Championship drivers 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers World Sportscar Championship drivers BMW M drivers