THE DRIVER
Experienced racing veteran Daniel Holihan has competed in many forms of motorsports over the years. Including go-karting at a young age, Legend Cars on dirt at Parramatta Speedway, Production Car endurance races at Bathurst but has currently found his home in the well respected Formula Ford 1600 category.
Daniel has won championships in the Go-Karting and Formula Ford ranks. He won his first ever kart race at North Shore Kart Club in 2006 and then followed it up by winning the ultra competitive KT100 Yamaha Clubman Light class in 2007 racing against 50 kart racers during that season. He was coached by World Karting Champion Troy Hunt out the gate and then mentored by fellow motorsport and kart racing stars such as Kristian Lindbom, Troy Hunt and his now driver coach/team owner Barton Mawer.
In his early years as a teenager and after school finished he was getting vast racing experience from racing teams such as Supercar team Tickford Racing and two-time World Time Attack winning team PR Tech Racing over racing weekends helping out both teams on various race weekends to drive his enthusiasm for the sport.
Daniel then went onto racing in the IAME Leopard Light and CIK KF1 classes in his senior years of karting. He competed all over Australia in the CIK Stars of Karting Championship. Competing against other professional drivers in the karting ranks at the time such as Scott McLaughlin, Joey Mawson, Todd Hazelwood, Cameron Hill, Chaz Mostert and Kristian Lindbom just to name a few.
Once accomplishing as much as he could in the karting ranks. He raced Legend Cars on dirt ovals at the now defunct Parramatta Speedway. As his original goal was to compete in 410 Sprintcars. Unfortunately it didn’t work out for him and he decided to race in motorsports top breeding ground of Formula Ford racing.
He began racing Formula Ford in 2014, gaining rookie experience with the Anglo Australian Motorsport team. From then onwards Daniel Holihan then went onto having a break out season in Formula Ford 1600.
Scoring his maiden win in 2015 aboard his Mygale SJ08 Formula Ford chassis defeating his then team-mates winning streak of 17 straight race wins, whilst also scoring a second place finish on his debut at National level in 2015 and grabbing twenty-two consecutive podiums on the trot the following year in 2016 finishing runner up in two different state championships.
The spear headed assault was run by crew chief Scott Morgan who now runs his own racing team Morgan Motorsport Australia, located near Mawer Engineering in Orangeville, NSW. Daniel then went onto win his first ever car racing championship in 2017 winning the HSRCA Formula Ford Historic New South Wales Championship defeating ex-Super2 driver Tom Tweedie aboard his Swift DB1 Formula Ford chassis whilst also defeating other experienced racing veterans in that same championship including past historic champions Cameron Walters, Keiran McLaughlin & Garry Watson.
Daniel has also made a one-off appearance in the Bathurst 6 Hour, whilst running and racing in his own team running a fully fledged racing operation on a twenty-five thousand dollar budget for the weekend when most teams ran their team that weekend in the one hundred grand budget. The team made headlines as it was a back marker team but it finished 22nd/55 cars aboard a little Suzuki Swift that year. He then wanted to challenge himself once again, against the younger generation of drivers in the Formula Ford Fiesta category in 2018/19. The Formula Ford Fiesta category is the fastest non-wings and slicks open wheel class in the world to be racing in to test your skills with those type of cars reaching excess speeds over 240km/ph.
Whilst Daniel wasn’t the fastest in this category, he showed great driver development thanks to his driver coach Barton Mawer in his corner. The pair collected five podiums over two seasons aboard his Mygale SJ12 Formula Ford chassis. When 2020 rolled around Daniel COVID-19 hit everyone differently.
Barton and Daniel decided to leave their customer deal with Anglo Australian Motorsport in 2020 and do it on their own from 2021 onwards, bringing Mawer Engineering Formula Ford team out of the ashes like a phoenix with the help from Victorian satellite teams such as Ellery Motorsport Enterprises and Borland Racing Developments aboard a brand new Spectrum 011K chassis built from the ground up purposely built and designed for Daniel’s return back in the prestigious and well respected Formula Ford 1600 category where he hopes to finally win the New South Wales Championship and John Smith Club Championship Trophy that he got oh so very close to many years ago.
THE TEAM
Daniel’s driver coach Barton Mawer raced one of his father’s Mawer Formula Ford open wheel racing cars that had previously won the national series twice during the 1970s. History was repeated when Barton drove the car to victory in the 1998 Australian Historic Formula Ford Championship with 11 race wins and setting four lap records.
In 1999, Barton stepped up to the NSW Formula Ford Championship. Driving one of the oldest cars in the field (a 1992 Van Diemen), he accumulated a wealth of experience preparing, setting up and driving a very complex and technical racing car. It was a similar situation the following year when Barton contested the Australian Formula Ford Championship.
Most of Bart’s rivals drove late-model ‘arrive and drive’ cars owned and prepared by professional racing teams. Barton and his father competed with their six year-old Mygale on a shoe-string racing budget. Nevertheless Barton showed great promise by placing just outside the top 10 in his rookie season on a National racing level.
They are hoping for the same kind of success with Daniel Holihan behind the wheel of the Australian built Spectrum 011K. As the team hopes to place regular top ten and five results as the seasons progresses.
The Mawer Engineering team will apply the same knowledge and experience to Daniel Holihan’s Formula Ford racing plans in 2021 and beyond, as the team will race a limited schedule on a shoe-string budget with limited spare parts available in a car that might be considered “new” in some ways to some enthusiasts but the car they are racing with is more than fourteen years old. Whilst the big budget teams have had cars being built up to the year 2018 as of late. So it really will be a David verse Goliath effort for the small team.
The team really are going “old school” racing in a modern world where they will be racing out of a small trailer and a van.
Mawer Engineering opted to go racing with Borland Racing Developments and Spectrum Formula Ford chassis in 2021 and beyond as it is all Australian built and manufactured in-house much like what happened at Mawer Engineering back in the 1970’s, compared to when both Daniel and his driver coach Barton Mawer ran Mygale’s back in their glory days. Will the choice of going against the grain of past success with one manufacture work for the small team.
Team manager Barton Mawer has longterm goals his driver Daniel Holihan to put him into other racing categories such as Super GT, Radicals, TCR and Formula 3 Australia have been discussed once the teams goal objectives are completed in Formula Ford 1600.
Stay tuned on this website to find out more about this teams journey!
THE CAR
Borland Racing Developments and Ellery Motorsport Enterprises have built from the ground up a 2006 Spectrum 011K for Daniel Holihan in season 2021.
The 011K is the most successful Kent1600 chassis to date winning five Victorian State Championships in the hands of Brendan Jones in recent years whilst also being dominant in the British, American, New Zealand and Canadian motorsport scenes, winning multiple races and championships including a title for Australian driver Scott Andrews, who won the 2015 USF1600 Series.
Daniel Holihan is hoping to replicate the same type of success in the New South Wales and National Kent1600 scene aboard the Spectrum chassis. Mawer Engineering will look after and develop the Spectrum 011K in-house, once the outside work has been completed by Ellery Motorsport Enterprises and Borland Racing Developments.
The actual chassis itself was formally a CAMS Rising Star car run by Minda Motorsport back in its hey-day with Kristian Lindbom originally behind the wheel in the Fiesta/Duratec category. It was then raced on by the likes of Porsche Cup star Nick McBride and former Kent1600 National Champion Tim Hamilton.
Being a bare chassis in the Ellery Motorsport Enterprises workshop. The car has been worked on since then and built up to suit Daniel’s unique driving style from past racing experiences. The newly built 011K will have slight differences in chassis design compared to its other 011 sister cars.
The Spectrum 011K technical features include:
Hewland 4-speed gearbox
Motec data logging system
Motorsport-quality wiring loom and electrics
FIA-standard on-board extinguisher, racing harness and fuel cell
Bespoke Penske Racing dampers