IRIS In Focus: So what does a Team Manager do?

As most of you will already know, I am the UK Team Manager for IRIS Racing.

The photo above is from the Essex Winter Series International held in December 2025 where Andreas and I shook hands on me accepting the role. What you may now know was that I had no idea that Andreas had this in mind, so when he asked me on that Sunday, I was surprised in a good way. Thankfully I was smart enough to say yes!

So what does a Team Manager do?

The title and idea for this article came from a question that one of my local club mates asked me not long after the announcement: “So what does a Team Manager do then Mark?”.

My answer was a bit cheeky as I replied: “Pretty much anything I want to do!”.

There is some truth in that as Andreas has trusted me to do what I feel needs to be done to support and grow the community of IRIS racers in the UK.

Other on-road RC brands have Team Manager roles (some do not), and whilst the basics are similar the way each of the brands and individual managers work does vary.

I for one am very keen to continue to race at events which I enjoy, and to continue to support my local club EARCC which I am delighted to say has a strong IRIS representation. My racing won’t be every weekend, as for me it is a healthy thing to have interests outside of r/c racing. In addition, my wonderful wife Fran and I have plenty of travel plans and future holidays booked.

Team Manager role at ETS

The Daun round of ETS earlier this year was my first as UK Team Manager. I deliberately didn’t make a plan as I wanted to see how the balance between my own racing, the IRIS UK Team Manager role and the group of Team GB @ ETS racers that I have been encouraging would work it.

Even with a record 500 plus entries and plenty of time between my own races in FWD class, that weekend was a real eye opener. There were multiple demands on my time, and without a plan the hours just rushed by in a blur.

I was catching up with Chris Clarke and his lovely wife Caroline over dinner after racing on Saturday night. It was the first hot meal I’d had time for that day, and I was writing an IRIS post whilst my food was getting cold. Worse still I was not spending quality time with two of my favourite people. Something had to change!

Fast forward to the ETS Round at Wiener Neustadt, and the lessons learned at Daun were successfully applied.

The first lesson was that I needed help. Thank you to Martin Reiser who stepped up and arranged individual IRIS racer photos, which was one less thing for me to organise.

Previously we’d struggled to get an IRIS team photo at ETS rounds. More correctly it tended to be a bit last minutes on Sunday after the finals when some of our group had long finished racing so missed the photo. Andreas and I talked about this early in the weekend and we found a gap in the schedule to get the photo below. Everyone who raced an IRIS car at Wiener Neustadt was in the photo, it was in front of the ETS banner on the rostrum, and it was the perfect result.

Another thing I learned early on was to write event updates once, and reuse that wording in multiple places. The easiest and quickest place for me to post updates and photos is the IRIS Discord (see the June IRIS in Focus for details on this). We set up a specific thread for each ETS round and other large race meetings, and I no longer find myself doing these in the middle of an end of day meal!

As UK Team Manager I am a Moderator for the IRIS ONE Facebook page (again see the June IRIS in Focus for details on this). This will get fewer updates during an ETS weekend, but typically at least one per day and a longer wrap up following the meeting.

As Andreas was not attending the ETS round at Apeldoorn in May, he asked me to be the lead contact for IRIS at the meeting. That worked out well, and with the lessons learned from Daun and Wiener Neustadt I could both step up to that role and enjoy everything ETS weekends involve racing at my favourite outdoor venue.

Other meetings like Essex Winter Series rounds also get updates from me both in Discord and the IRIS ONE Facebook page. I also had the privilege of announcing that Billy Fletcher’s son Frankie would be racing IRIS, and as Team Manager I know it won’t be long before young Frankie will most likely be ahead of me at race meetings!

Supporting and growing the IRIS UK racing community

There is lots going on beyond ETS of course, and we have a vibrant and varied on road r/c racing scene here in the UK. Whilst outdoor racing is seasonal in the UK climate, we do have plenty of indoor carpet racing continuing all year round. I now maintain an IRIS UK racing calendar to keep track of both the multiple race meetings and who we have racing where. It continues to be invaluable, and I was updating it earlier and was reminded of a couple of race meeting where we have IRIS entrants over the next few weekends.

What I want to achieve is for IRIS racers to enjoy racing their cars. That means getting the right support and advice to get the most of their IRIS cars. If each IRIS racer has a smile on their face, then I know I am doing the right thing.

Should a racer want to have IRIS stickers on their cars, and wear IRIS t-shirts then of course that is great to see. But enjoying the racing our cars is the most important thing for me.

Recently we had a few racers interested in IRIS FWD cars. With no used cars immediately available in the UK, I put out feelers to find some. Fast forward a few weeks and my match making efforts were rewarded with new IRIS racers receiving their FWD race cars.

The IRIS Discord server has an “ask-mark-and-billy” thread specifically for UK racers. I do post regular updates there and I will answer any questions there or in any of the other sections and threads. Recently I launched a FWD bodyshell mounting guide format, and we now have these published for the Bitty Design A3-F and Blitz Mk10 shells with more to follow.

I need to also tip the hat to our Austria Team Manager Chris Grach. A fast racer in his own rights, Chris does a great job of answering the technical questions on IRIS Discord. We typically only see each other face-to-face at a couple of ETS rounds per year, but both share a passion in supporting IRIS racers wherever in Europe or the world they are racing.

I hope you’ve found this insight into my Team Manager role interesting. It will continue to evolve as both IRIS and on road r/c racing moves on, and I’m looking forward to a bright and positive future.

Talking of the future, for next month’s article in August I will spend a bit more time talking about what it’s like to race with IRIS at an ETS Round. Between now and then we have a group of ten IRIS racers entered for the Trencin round at the world famous Hudy Arena, so that experience will be the focus for the article.

Mark Burgess
IRIS UK Team Manager
July 2026