 'Jack de Keijzer - Imperatore Rally & Race Consulting' Since the start of this year Dutchman Jack de Keijzer runs his own rally and racing consultancy agency.
For the past 20 years he has served several national and international teams with his knowledge, time to look back before we jump forward;
Name: Jack de Keijzer
Date of birth: september 17, 1963 in Zaamslag (Netherlands)
Status: married with Sonia & 1 daughter Federica.
Favorite food: Pasta
Favorite drink: my Dutch beer (Heineken) or a good glass of wine
Hobbies: walking, traveling, computers, Hi-Tec gadgets, race & rally simulators
Music: I like all sorts of music (depending on my mood)
Languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese
Favorite rally car ever: Lancia Delta S4
Best rally driver: Colin McRae … (forever in my Hart)
People as example: Luca di Montezemolo, David Richards, Andre Schoonenwolf
Driving licenses: From a Motorbike to a Centurion Army Tank
First Rally Experience
My first Rally experience was around 1977/1978 when I went to see some national events in Belgium with my Father. He was already very interested in auto sport and was following the Fiat Group when he took me to see my 1st Rally in Belgium in 1977.
I will never forget the sound of the Engines in the Night and the spectacular driving style of the rear Wheel driven cars like the Ford Escort, Fiat 131 and Porsche's. After that first rally experience I lost my heart to Rallying and dreamed to be a part of it one day. Until today I still love to see it, feel it and be there.
First Rally Team 1979-1980
My first job in rally sport came as early as 1979 (I was 16 years old). One day a person by the name of Rob Simons comes in my fathers garage and he was asking if my father was interested in sponsoring him in rally sport. He told us that he was driving a Fiat 128 Coupé and he wanted to do some rallys and slalom events in the Netherlands. My father said he was not really interested because motorsport costs a lot of money, etc.
The next day Rob Simons came back again, but this time with his Fiat 128 Rally car with full decoration and as Sponsor name my Fathers Garage !! This of course surprised my father and he couldn't refuse, so we started driving in the Dutch national championship 1979. And I started helping them with the Rally service and preparing the car (mostly cleaning the car during service, but I was happy to be involved).
Also in 1979 we started to compete in some small map reading rally's with a group of friends from some local garages. We were using a Fiat 131 1.6 road car with a self made roll cage. My father was driving (because I didn't have a license then) while I was the co-pilot. I was really good in map reading and we even won some events.
When I finally got my drivers license (in 1981) we changed position in the car and I became the driver! Finaly I could do where I was dreaming of. Somewhere in 1982 a couple of Belgium drivers asked us if we would like to drive some real Rally's. Of course I didn't have to think twice and we started to prepare our Rally car.
My very first rally car was a black Fiat 131 1600 TC Gr 2 (160 Hp). We built that car ourselves and the engine was made by 'Denspeed' in Belgium. My first Rally did not last very long.....in the first stage and 2nd corner I put the car in a ditch!! My father was disappointed as I did not really listen to his pace notes, but I promised to listen the next time. We build a new rally car, again a Fiat 131 1600 TC (Group 2). This car was fast enough to challenge for the lead and I soon won some regional events in Belgium. I was driving in the Belgium Regional Rally Championship from 1983/1986 and we finished 2nd in the 1985 season.
As we were starting to drive faster and faster my father decided to stop being my co-driver (we had a few high speed crashes and maybe that was the reason ?) and I had to look for somebody else to be my co-pilot. I didn't really find anybody that I could trust reading the pace notes and I decided to stop and do something else. I had already some contacts in rally cross and that got my attention at that time.
Our family business has been involved in rally Cross for quite some time.
First we drove with a Fiat 128 Coupe (1980 - 1982) and a Fiat 128 Gr2 (Driver Piet Bakker) and later on we started to work with Bram van de Wege who was driving with Simca rally cross cars in the Dutch and Belgium championships.
He started to drive for our company in 1985 with a Fiat 131 2.0 Gr A and we drove in the Dutch, Belgium and European rallyCross championships. In 1986 we changed to a Fiat Ritmo Abarth 130 TC Gr A. We had a lot of technical problems with this cars as we could not get the right parts (like suspension and gearbox), we had to drive with standard specifications and this simply didn't work. With some support from Fiat Auto Netherlands in 1986 we were able to buy some good factory parts for the car from Fiat Abarth in Italy.
These Parts were very difficult to get as they were normally only for the factory rally cars, but we finally got what we needed. This changed the performance of the car a lot and we soon were winning races again. Bram van de Wege had very good results in Holland and Belgium and in 1987 we won the Dutch International Rally cross Championship in Gr A !! We also did some races for the European championship but it was very hard to compete against the Ford Sierra Cosworths, Volvo Turbo's, etc. In 1988 we decided to stop with the rally cross program.
Lancia Martini NL
As I was already interested in rallying and frequently went to view events with my father I wanted to start work for a rally team. I got in contact with Henk Vossen and Andre Schoonenwolf who were going to drive with an ex-factory Lancia Delta Integrale Gr A in the 1989 Dutch Championship. I was very interested (as my father was also selling Lancia road cars) and I went to help them in several rally's for the 1989 International Dutch championship and some events in Germany. This was a very interesting time as Henk Vossen was a very experienced rally driver and Andre Schoonenwolf a super co-driver also the team atmosphere was very nice. The car was a Lancia Martini Delta HF Integrale 8v Group A in the same colors as the Factory Lancia team.
Sadly Lancia in the Netherlands saw more publicity in the car being presented at shows and golf courses then invest in the sport so the project was not going to have a long life. Many people from LANIM the Lancia importer that time were working in their free weekends on the car (and so was I). So when Lancia stopped with rallying in Netherlands I was looking to continue to work in rally sport and on a high level.
Mazda Rally Team Europe
Andre Schoonenwolf knew I was going for an interview with the Mazda Rally Team Europe and he send a fax to introduce me to the team. This opened some doors for me to get involved in the World Rally Championship with Mazda Rally Team Europe. I am still very very thankful to Andre that he send this fax, because this changed my life completely in a way I could never imagine.
So here I was , my first job with a World Championship Team started in September 1989. Mazda was based in Zaventem (Belgium) witch was ideal for me because I was still living in the Netherlands and the team was just 90 Km from my home. So I stay during the week in an apartment and in the free weekends I went back home.
I was hired to work as a mechanic in the 'Parts Preparation Department' together with another Dutch mechanic named 'Barry van Boxmeer'. This made it more easy for me to adapt to the team as we spoke the same language. The Mazda team was a mix of people from all over Europe (English, German, French and Swedish) but we all worked well together. We had a very good time and it was a great experience for me to start working in the World Championship. The first time the mechanics told me that they were changing suspensions in 5 minutes, gearboxes in 20 minutes I thought they were joking. But after some training I realized that when you stay cool and calm you can do a lot of work in 15 minutes service time. Specially when you're in the service point and you see the car coming in service on 3 wheels and the one on your side is missing!! But all went well and I learned a lot at Mazda and the WRC and made friends all over the world in many teams. (many of them are still working today in Rallying). The Mazda 323 was always the underdog in the WRC and we could not fight with Lancia and Toyota (witch had huge budgets). Just when we all thought that we were going to have a good car and good sponsors and budget, Mazda Japan decided to stop rallying end of 1992.
This was an end to a dream, many of the mechanics went to England were most of the teams were based (Ford, Nissan, Mitsubishi, etc.) and some went to Germany (Toyota Team Europe). So I decided to follow them and came in contact with Nissan Motorsport.
Nissan Motorsport
The first time I had contact with Nissan Motorsport it was a pleasant surprise that they were starting to work with Barron Sports Development in the Netherlands. For me this was perfect as I could stay in the Netherlands, so I accepted to work with them. Barron Sports Development was a company run by John Bosch, he was driving with a BMW M3 in the Dutch and European championship and they were now changing to Nissan. They were the official Satellite Team in Europe to Build and service the Nissan Sunny GTI-R Group N. When I started working with Barron there were still a few of the beautiful M3 Group A rally cars in the workshop and my first rally with them was also the last Rally of the BMW M3. I had the honor to go and deliver the last Marlboro BMW M3 Group A to a client in the South of France.
We built the 1st Nissan Sunny GTR-N in time for the RAC Rally (November 1991) and we did not have much time to test the car before the rally. The Sunny GTi-R was a nice handling car and fast enough to challenge some Gr A 4x4 cars, and soon John was leading the Group N class. Sadly most of the time the Gearbox did not last a complete Rally and it was almost impossible to change it during a 45 Minute service, but we trained a lot and soon we get it right. In 1992 we did the Dutch championship and also some Rally's for the World and European Championship (WRC Sweden, WRC Portugal , Madeira and Acores Rally's). There were also cars being made for customers, like the son of the president of Amman, and 2 cars for the Portuguese championship (Madeira island). I was working with the Portuguese team in Madeira and I spend a lot of time on this beautiful island. During one of these rally's in 1992 I met a girl named Sonia who was a co-pilot for the Peugeot Portugal team (Peugeot 309 Gr A) and one thing led to another and now I'm still married to her :)
Barron Sports Development was closed at the end of 1992, so I had to look for another team (which I found: Ford Motorsport and RAS Sport)
Ford Motorsport:
Teams:
RAS Sport, RAS - Ford, Team Marlboro Ford Middle East and MLP (Mike Little Preparations)
Drivers:
Patrick Snijers, Bruno Thiry, Abdullah Bakhashab, Patrick Bernardini, Francois Delecour, Miki Biasion, Gregoire deMevius, Jose Marie Ponce, Cesar Baronie, Enrico Bertone and Didier Auriol.
Cars:
Ford Sierra Cosworth 4x4 Gr A, Ford Escort Cosworth Gr A, Ford Escort WRC, Ford Escort Kit-Car.
One day in 1993 the Italian Fabio Lazzerini chief Engineer at Ford - RAS Sport told me that my family name de Keijzer means IMPERATORE (the Emperor , the King) in Italian, as a joke he started to call me with this name and thats why many people today who know me call me also Imperatore ... Thanks Fabio :-)
Ford M-Sport
M-Sport was providing the team of Erwin Weber with a Ford Focus RS 01 and the driver was going to be the 2001 European Champion Armin Kremer. He Started in the 2002 Monte Carlo Rally and the Weber team had a good relation with the M-Sport mechanics (I also knew a few friends working there that moved from Ford Motorsport to M-Sport in 1997). Armin Kremer was going to drive 7 WRC events.
He had a good finish in Monte Carlo and Cataluña, but we retired in Finland (clutch), Greece (accident) and retired in the Deutschland Rally with a very big crash. Armin hit a guard rail at 160 km/h and the car caught fire, he and his co-pilot were lucky to escape unhurt. The final rally was the RAC Rally 2002 with the new Ford Focus RS 02.
2003 was the year I was thinking on finishing with Rally and do something else.
So I followed some circuit racing events with Alfa Romeo 147 GTA cars and did some driving instructor training in Italy with the Alfa Romeo 156 GTA. But I soon found out that my hart is with rally and the circuit is no place for me to be, at least not at that moment.
BMW X-Raid
During the 2004 season, when I was helping RGRS (Rene Georges Rally Sport) and Volkswagen, I still had good contact with my friend Erwin Weber. Erwin was at that time working together with the X-Raid team and the BMW X5 Rally Raid. He needed somebody to help him in the 2005 Baja Portugal, where 2 cars were driving so I went there. For me this was a new experience I had never done. Everything was made like a tank and the cars were very impressive. The service time is not like in a rally (20 or 30 minutes) it is sometimes up to 3 hours !!!! Something I had to get used to (it's a lot more relaxing).
One driver in Portugal was an old friend of me (Kalifa al Mutawei from Dubai who drove for the Toyota Victory team in the 1995 Middle East Championship), so we had a good time in Portugal. I enjoyed this type of Rallying and who knows where the future is ??
VW RGRS
Volkswagen Racing / Rene Georges Rally sport:
Rene Georges Rally sport is the Official satellite team of VW Motorsport for the VW Polo Super 1600 and from 2006 also the official importer and distributor of Volkswagen Racing South Africa for the VW Polo 5 Super 2000.
In 2004/2005 Rene Georges Rally sport had 2 Polo's driving in Portugal and 1 car in Hungary and Belgium.
I was interested in the Portuguese program but as the first rally was already done in Portugal I started with the Hungarian Championship and driver Zsolt Kakuszi (Maxx Rally Team), and I continued to help them in 2005, during that time I built up a good relationship with the Maxx Rally Team. He missed the Hungarian Championship for Super 1600 cars by just 1 Point in 2005! I was helping RGRS to introduce the VW Polo Super 2000 and do some client support (mostly foreign clients) as I speak a lot of languages, I also helped with the team coordinating work. The New VW Polo 5 Super 2000 was driven in Belgium by Freddy Loix and on some selected IRC Rally's. Alberto Hevia from Spain was driving the 2007 Spanish Asphalt championship, they both finished 2nd in their 2007 championships. Tomek Czopik from Poland drove the car on some selected Polish, European and IRC rounds, but changed to a Abarth Punto S 2000 after Iepers Rally 2007.(his highlight was setting the fastest time on the 1st Stage of the Croatia Rally).
Fiat Abarth
Abarth still is one of the most famous tuning company's in the Fiat history. Carlo Abarth was known for his magic small Fiat 500 and Fiat 600 Abarth and later on the company made the Fiat 124 Abarth, Fiat Ritmo Abarth and Fiat 131 Abarth. And let's not forget the Lancia Martini Team that used the famous Lancia's 037, Delta S 4 and Delta HF Integrale. The company made it's return to rallying with the Fiat Punto Super 1600 and the Abarth Punto Super 2000 and Abarth is now a make on its own within the Fiat Group. The Punto Super 2000 won the European championship in 2006 and Italian championship in 2006 and 2007. In 2009 the team will again take part in the IRC (Intercontinental Rally Challenge) and is preparing a possible entry in the WRC in 2010/2011.
There are many customers in Europe who drive the Abarth Punto S 2000: (Italy: Basso, Travaglia, Navarra), (Portugal: Pereira & Fontes), (Spain: Fuster, M Hevia ), (Poland: Solowow - Grzyb & Czopik ), ( Turkey : Isik ), etc ,etc. Even Francois Duval drove a Fiat Punto S 2000 in the 2007 Condroz rally (wich he won !). My plan was to help a Portuguese driver with a Fiat Abarth in Portugal to do the Portuguese Championship in 2008... this all changed due to the accident that happened on the March 10th, 2008 in Belgium.
Volkswagen Racing
Due to the Tragic Testing accident that happened on 10 March 2008 and took the life of the RGRS engineer Hans Goudezeune I made the decission to return to help the Volkswagen Team. Rene Georges Rallysport had a major structural change since the beginning of 2008, new service truck, change in Logistics, etc, etc. A big step forward for a small private Volkswagen Team that does great work with the Polo Super 2000.
Many good results have been made by the VW Polo S2000, 2nd place in the 2007 Spanish Asphalt championship, 1st place in 2008 Belgian S2000 championship, 2nd Place in the Austrian Championship 2008 with Kris Rosenberger, victory in the 2009 BP Rally Austria, etc...
Olca Team IRC Madeira
In August 2009 I had the pleasure to go to the IRC Madeira Rally and help the OLCA team (Alexandre Camacho/Pedro Calado) Peugeot 207 S2000. Alexandre Camacho is the 2008 National champion of Madeira and on his way to win the 2009 Championship. The team scored a 3rd place in the 2008 IRC Madeira and for 2009 the expectations were a top 5. As his lucky number is 5 and this year his start nr was nr 5! My trip could not start any better with numbers 5 (and I'm not superstitious), the departure time in Brussels to Lisbon was 05.55, and the gate 55, then the flight to Lisbon was at gate 207, so all indicated that I was going to work with car number 5 and a (Peugeot) 207 :) Alexandre drove an excellent event and never went away from 3rd place, an excellent result for a small team with limited budget. Well done OLCA Team, also for keeping the official Kronos Peugeot cars behind you. The 2 Portuguese Peugeots were from another planet.
RGRS Skoda
May 2009 was a Start of a new project for Rene Georges Rally sport. A new car has arrived in hands of Rene Georges Rally sport (the Skoda Fabia S2000). One of the hottest Super 2000 cars on the market that after only being in it's 1st year of development already made its mark. This is one of the best S2000 cars available and in the hands to talented drivers capable to win many rally's. RGRS had 2 Skoda Fabia S2000 available for Rent!
The 1st event for the new RGRS car was the 2009 IRC Rally Iepers with Francois Duval, and soon followed by top drivers like Pavel Valousek, Eyvind Brynildsen, Bernd Casier and Guy Wilks. Best results in 2009 for the RGRS Skoda Fabia S2000:
Pavel Valousek: 6th Place IRC Barum.
Eyvind Brynildsen: 1st Gr N WRC Spain & 1st PWRC Rally GB.
Bernd Casier: 1st Rally Jalhay and 2nd Condroz Rally Belgium.
Guy Wilks: 1st place IRC Rally of Scotland.
I ended my working relation with Skoda RGRS on 15 Mai 2010 to concentrate more on my own company that I started from 1/1/2010.
Now back to the present:
Since the beginning of 2010 Jack started his own company named 'Imperatore Rally & Race Consulting'. Using the experience mentioned above he can offer a wide range of products to several teams and/or drivers.
1- Team Coordinating / Consultancy Services:
• Provide Rally and Racing teams with advise on Motorsport events around the world
• Driver & Co-Driver Management Service
• Logistic Planning for the complete Team
• Service Schedules
• Movement Schedules
• Hotel Bookings
• Travel Planning
• Flight Bookings
• Day By Day Planning for the team
• Rally Maps
• Technical Support During Events
• Rally Insurance
• Budget Calculations for Events or Complete Championships
• Testing Locations in Europe ( Asphalt or Gravel ) Fully Legal with Security Service
• Team Presentation Documents
• VIP Rally & Racing Host
2- Rally car Rental
• WRC
• S2000
• Group N
• R2
• R3
• Historic
3- Rally car buy and sell services.
4- Test track services all around Europe.
5- VIP and Guest Host.
At the moment he’s working with Mitsubishi Ralliart Italy as a coordinator of the PWRC program with Armindo Araujo, and from the first of august 2010 also as a team manager at Silver Arrows Racing (Mercedes Historic Rally 500 SLC). Besides this he’s also trying to find a good car or team for several drivers.
If you are interested in Jack his services please send an e-mail or give him a call:
E-mail: info@jackdekeijzer.com
Telephone: + 31 - 655 78 1788
or visit the website: www.imperatore-rally-racing.com |
