About
SM Designs and The Wing Shop principal Simon McBeath is a freelance racecar aerodynamics writer and designer. From1997 he produced regular technical articles for Racecar Engineering magazine, having started his freelance writing career with Cars & Car Conversions in 1993. Motorsport aerodynamics is a specialist topic, and a long term arrangement with ANSYS UK enabled, through his published work, unique aerodynamics insights using their amazing CFD software. And between 2006-2020 Simon managed and ran a relationship between Racecar Engineering and MIRA that provided regular wind tunnel experiences published in a monthly column called Aerobytes. During this period a great deal of valuable hands-on knowledge of motorsports aerodynamics was obtained, and hundreds of articles on the topic were written.
Simon has had close links with DJ Engineering Ltd (a.k.a. DJ Racecars) since 1997, and under the The Wing Shop brand Simon designed the racecar wings superbly manufactured in autoclaved pre-preg carbon composite by them.
Simon has also written a number of technical motorsport books, originally published by Haynes Publishing, and following their withdrawal from the market sector they are now available from David & Charles. Competition Car Aerodynamics is now in its third edition. Competition Car Composites also continues to sell well. He is now a retired member of The Guild of Motoring Writers. He has also written on a variety of other topics, including travel and meteorology.​
From 1997 until 2015 he worked for Gurston Down Hillclimb near Salisbury in Wiltshire, southern England, as the Press Officer for the organising club, the British Automobile Racing Club (South Western Centre).
And as a successful competitor on the UK national hillclimb scene from 1979 until 2003 in a wide range of machinery - mostly single seaters - Simon also worked as a licenced Instructor at the Gurston Down Hillclimb Drivers School. In 2015 he made a competitive return to the cockpit driving a Swift SC92F in hillclimbing's Pre-1994 Formula Ford class and he won the class in the Gurston Down Hillclimb Championship in 2015/16/17 as well as the first two Gurston Down 'FF Fest' events in 2016/17. In 2018 he competed in events more widely, finishing second in the Midland Hillclimb Championship class and winning the national MSA Hillclimb Leaders Championship class before deciding to retire from the sport on that national championship class-winning high at the final event of 2018!
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Now mostly retired from work, Simon continues to provide technical support to DJ Engineering wing customers, offering help with wing selection from our portfolio and, if required, providing advice on full aerodynamics packages to SM Designs/DJ Engineering wing customers.