May 05, 2011
Published on tags: Superleague
After a period of silence from the Williamson Dynamics camp in recent weeks, amid a mixed and turbulent start to the season, the dust seems to be finally settling with under fire team principal and majority stakeholder Ben Williamson seen back at the helm in Kyalami after a noteable absence from the last round of the Superleague.

While no official statement has been forthcoming, this is taken as a sign that in the interim at least, Williamson will be remaining in charge of the team.

However, a change at the top is not ruled out concretly. The organisation themselves had previously admitted to being in talks with a number of parties about a potential takeover of the race team, to allow focus to return to other parts of the WD brand such as engine supply and aero engineering. Negotiations with former WD team members, Silverline Racing, fell through after preliminary talks left silverline concerned that a rapid expansion in their operation, especially absorbing a technical behemoth such as WDGP, would result in them overstretching themselves and a break down in the team similar to the one which tore WD apart in the early 2010 season.

It is strongly believed that the primary choice for a potential new owner is Orangetech Racing boss, Gregg Lawson. Lawson himself is a former Williamson driver and licenced the Orangetech brand for the 2010 season to WD.

However, voices on the other side of the fence have been far from quiet also. Paul Maher, boss of streetwear and sports apparel firm Deadlite Industries - a previous paying sponsor of Williamson Dynamics and it's off-shoots - and board member of 2010 title sponsor Maxico , feels quite strongly that Williamson remains the right man for the job.

In a statement Maher gave unreserved support to the Lancastrian who founded the team; "Let's be clear on one thing. When you take a look at people who have had a big, revolutionizing influence on sim racing. the people who have helped the medium grow and develop into what you see today, Ben Williamson has to be on anybodies list."

"Here is a guy who was producing full developed press release while most teams simply weren't bothering, and anybody who is honest about must surely recognize that he and his team have always been ahead of the curve in terms of idea development, and until recent months, professionalism. WDGP were among the first, if not the first team to have genuine paying sponsors, the first team to produce genuine off-the.shelf merchandise, the first team to produce high-quality hotlaps with suitably professional production and commentary, the team that wrote the book on bringing big, household name companies into sim racing without beaking copyright law. Everything in the 2009 season they did was gold, they were the first sim racing team I believe to have over 100 fans on a social media platform, their website was a cut above with fully licenced music. This is the foundations of building a genuine brand that people can relate to."

When asked to elaborate on th eteam's recent issues and shortcomings, Maher was clear that he believed the blame was on everybodies shoulders; "As team principal, sure it's a big role, deciding the direction of the team.. but in all honesty, most of his decisions are business or image ones rather than racing ones. He made the call on drivers, but relied on the opinion of other directors and board members and feedback from people who were driving practice runs with them. The guy was never in game, his role is a pretty disconnected one in real terms. Once you know who is driving what car and when.. for the daily operation of the team he is redundant so long as drivers do what they are supposed to and the league is functioning. The team lost a lot of good guys in the early 2010 season, and he got a lot of flak for it but let's be honest.. it's a democratic team and the route the team went going into 2010 was agreed by the majority. When the flag dropped the GPVWC team got caught out by incidents, and the GPO team did not adjust well to the new mod and physics. this breeds frustration an danger and people walked, it's understandable but to blame Ben for that is frankly wrong. The issues with the rebuilding, well that is down to the people joining the team as much as the management. People have joined the team promising a lot and delivering almost nothing, expecting setups to be handed to them, skipping practice sessions. Other teams have the support structure for that in place, so when things are tough these people walk out the door again, in my mind breaking an agreement with the team who brought them in to Sim Racing."

"With all this in mind, I'm pleased to announce that Deadlite Industries are looking into resuming our relationship with Williamson Dynamics in the 2012 season, however my decision on this is very much tied to the quality of the team's management and I feel it's Ben's name in the title, he and Marco built the team from scratch and they should take it forward. I want to see the dead weight cut from the team and committed and enthusiastic, talented, new faces coming in, thats for sure, but the team has al the right makings and I think together we can go the distance."