EXCLUSIVE By ADAM LAZZARI BRITISH Touring Car driver Liam McMillan has been forced to miss his second successive race meeting due a dispute that has led to his engines being kidnapped. McMillan, 19, from Wisbech could not race at Croft on Sunday and had t

EXCLUSIVE

By ADAM LAZZARI

BRITISH Touring Car driver Liam McMillan has been forced to miss his second successive race meeting due a dispute that has led to his engines being kidnapped.

McMillan, 19, from Wisbech could not race at Croft on Sunday and had to miss Donington Park in May because French engine builders Oreca refused to return his engines because of an outstanding debt with his vehicle's previous owners.

Liam's father and manager Paul McMillan paid half of the debt and the engines were returned from France last Wednesday, but they were not rebuilt and had several components missing.

Paul said: "We didn't have time to repair the engines so Liam had to pull out again. My priority is to get him back out on the road so I ended up forking out thousands of pounds to pay half of the debt.

"I understood we would not be culpable for this when we took the car. We've sought legal advice. They wouldn't be able to get away with this sort of thing in Britain, but French law is different.

"We're doing all the work in-house now."

Liam is set to return to action at the next BTCC meeting, at Snetterton on August 1-2.

He said: "I'm absolutely gutted to have missed Croft, but we did everything we could to be there.

"We've had a few ups and downs in the first half of the season, both on and off the track, but racing at this level is proving to be a fantastic experience.

"Snetterton is my local track. I've raced there more times than anywhere else. It's the perfect venue to return to the BTCC grid and try and score my first top ten race result.

"We'll have a fresh 16 value engine and that will give us the power we need to score some very good results."

Oreca were unavailable for comment when the Wisbech Standard attempted to contact them this week.