JCB sponsors the Drayson-Barwell team.

JCB is sponsoring and sharing specialist knowledge with international British GT sports car racing team Drayson-Barwell.

The Drayson-Barwell team is the first team to win a sports car race with a bio-ethanol fuel car during its title-winning British GT Championship campaign in 2007. It is also the only British team to enter full-time into the 2008 American Le Mans Series (ALMS), arguably the world's most competitive car racing championship.

Drayson-Barwell says it is aiming to showcase how new energy-saving technologies can make vehicles more competitive by securing the series' recently-announced Green Challenge.

JCB chairman Anthony Bamford says improved vehicle performance and better environmental performance were not mutually exclusive.

"We learned from our JCB Dieselmax experience that motor sport is a fertile ground for developing advanced technologies that can be applied in our production machines," Bamford says. "I am confident that Drayson-Barwell will [also] prove to the world that there is no conflict between these two challenges," he adds.

On 23 August 2006, JCB Dieselmax, JCB's "streamliner" car, broke the world land speed diesel record on Utah's Bonneville sands with its JCB444 engine, a high-power engine using low emissions combustion technology.

Drayson-Barwell is a joint venture between Barwell Motorsport and former British government minister Lord Drayson. It is committed to engineering excellence in motorsport and in the wider automotive community and specialises in developing and applying green technologies.

Hyster Europe is the new sponsor of Team Barloworld.

Separately, Hyster Europe has become a new sponsor of cycling team Team Barloworld.

The cycling team was sponsored by Barloworld five years ago as part of its marketing strategy to promote the "Barloworld" name globally. As part of its strategy, the team aimed to become the first South African-sponsored team to ride in the Tour de France and that goal was met in 2007.