W.A.R.R. The World Airline Road Race
BA Shirts

1983 Orlando, Florida

The only shirt on display was the official Tee Shirt given to all competitors.

1984 Honolulu, Hawaii

The British Airways Team wore its own team Tee Shirt produced specially for the occasion.
This went down very well at the pre-race party where fellow competitors had already established a pin swapping activity. Few BA Shirts were swapped but the idea of the Tee Shirt Swap Party was born.

From 1998 I took on the role of designing the British Airways Tee Shirt - believing this to be the only way for me to win something at the WARR event.

1998 Brussels, Belgium

This shirt, featuring the best of Brussels and Belgium, came second to a shirt by a US airline which appeared to feature the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum.
The BA shirt showed the globes of Brussels' Atomium monument over a map of Belgium with the globes featuring local architecture, Brussels' statues, chocolates, beer, the EEC (HQ in Brussels) and TinTin (whose author was from Belgium).

Click on each image for full size version

The back was in the same style but featured British Airway's ethnic tail fin designs.

1999 Vancouver, Canada

We were plagued by administrative and production problems throughout and at one point seriously thought that we wouldn't produce the shirt at all. It was a victory that we did although it was still a pity to be unplaced in the competition.
The front featured the Vancouver skyline fronted by the statue of Harry Winston Jerome as seen from the race course.

Click on each image to see the artwork from an earlier version of each side

The back featured familiar faces of the BA Running Club as Totem Poles.

2000 Cancun, Mexico

More problems with printers. The front and back shown are as sent to the judges. These were generated on a very short production run using iron-on transfers on top of the shirts that the printer had given us. In the competition we were unplaced.

Click on the front image to see what we sent to the printer.
Click on the back image to see what the printer sent back to us. But first promise that you won't laugh.

2001 Lucerne, Switzerland

My design was another complex one and I lost interest in it so I didn't mind when BA choose John Taylor's simpler design as here. We went for a long sleeve shirt in case the Swiss autumn weather was on the cool side. In the circumstances we should of selected a waterproof mac. In the competition we were unplaced.

Click on the image to see my rejected design.

This was my design on the back which celebrated the club's twentieth anniversary.

Click on the image for a close-up.

2002 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This was John Taylor's design selected for the front of the tee shirt. Click on the image for a close-up. Click here to see the design I submitted that wasn't selected.
In the WARR Tee Shirt competition BA was placed 1st - the first time BA has won this award since about 1988. Was it John's design for the front, or my back, or was it simply the red shirt that made it stand out to the judges ? Perhaps a combination of all of these.
PS Thanks also to Paul Knechtl for persisting with the printers.

This was my design for the back which shows the location on a world globe of all 21 WARR races to date.

Click on the image for a close-up.

2003 Orlando, Florida

This was John Taylor's design selected for the front of the tee shirt. Click on the image for a close-up. Click here to see the design I submitted that wasn't selected.
In the WARR Tee Shirt competition BA was placed joint 3rd.

This was my design for the back.  It may look a bit "Mickey Mouse" but is in fact a description of WARR and a list of all of the WARR venues to date. Click on the image for a close-up.

2004 Prague, The Czech Replublic

John Taylor came up with the spires and the concept of the simple outline design on a dark shirt. I thought that it was too simple and added the bridge and the light blue river. Click on the image for a close-up.  Since this WARR was the twentieth for both me and John we had a sleeve image added for us and the other four BA WARR Veterans.  Click here to see details of the sleeve design.
In the WARR Tee Shirt competition we weren't placed.

This was John's design for the back.  Click on the image for a close-up and details of the sub-images. Click here to see the design I submitted that wasn't selected.

2005 Calgary, Canada

John Taylor designed front and back.

In the WARR Tee Shirt competition we weren't placed.

In my view my design would have been done better. Click here to see the front and back designs I submitted that weren't selected.

2006 Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Click on the picture to see the detailed image. This was my design for the front of the 25th WARR race.  With a road "25" with runners and Dutch images of Tulips, Windmills and a canal bridge. This was on a Dutch orange background on a tee-shirt that wasn't orange. I thought that this was a good design for at least a placing but the judges didn't vote for it and we were unplaced. But the BA team had a good shirt to wear and one that celebrated our 25th anniversary as well as that of the World Airline Road Race.

Click on the picture to see the detailed image. This was the back of the design showing the "25" road traveled by the WARRiers.  On either side of the road are images from each of the 25 official tee-shirts from the 25 events. I had this design 90% complete when the announcement came through that the 25th WARR race had been cancelled. Fortunately the event was quickly reinstated.

2007 Sydney, Australia

Click on the picture to see the detailed image. John's design for the front featuring the Union Jack covered Opera House and the Southern Cross.  In the competition we were unplaced. Click here to see my rejected design.

Click on the picture to see the detailed image. This was my design for the back with the globe centered on Australia and featuring the locations of all previous WARR races.

2008 Ottawa, Canada

Front - click on the picture to see the detailed image.  In the competition we were unplaced.

Back - click on the picture to see the detailed image.

2009 Hangzhou, Canada

Front - click on the picture to see the detailed image.  In the competition we came joint 3rd.  I was disappointed since I'd gone to the trouble of putting on Chinese wording to please the judges (other teams had not).

Back - click on the picture to see the detailed image.

2010 London, England

Front - click on the picture to see the detailed image.  Click here to see the WARR Shirt from 1985 on which this shirt was based. In the competition we were unplaced which I was happy about because this is one that the hosts shouldn't win.

Back - A worried toad having heard the WARR theme of "Run the Frog and Toad".

Both designs by myself (apart from the copied bits of course).

2011 Grapevine, Texas

Front - This featured the steam train promoted by the Grapevine Vintage Railway trip included in the WARR events.  This was drawn out of running shoe prints.  Click on the image to check out the detail to see what I mean.  If you look closely you may also see a few paw prints (the WARR theme was "Running with the Big Dogs")   In the competition we were unplaced but with this green shirt we didn't lose a member of the team all week!

Back - the fertile vine that is WARR - each of the grapes represents one of the 30 WARR events held to date.  Click on the image for the detail.

Both designs by myself.

2012, Qingdao, China

There was no BA shirt at Qingdao.  The BA Team size was small and I was too busy to even produce a home made shirt.