Donington Park Saturday 31st March 2012

The final day of the 3rd warmest March on record saw,somewhat ironically, a cool & overcast day at Donington for a BARC organised Motors TV "Live" raceday. For a couple of years now Motors TV have broadcast the occasional club meeting in its entirety live. It's an opportunity for the club driver to gain some valuable air time for sponsors and show their skills to a wider audience. Sadly (as is usual at Donington) there wasn't much of a wider audience trackside with a very small crowd in attendance, the majority of whom I know personally.....
The meeting had 10 races with double-headers for Kumho BMW's,Vintage Sports & Formula Junior plus the 4 classes of Caterham Graduates each had 2 races each. Despite the threat of fuel shortages and a perceived economic downturn there were a staggering amount of entries,especially for BMW's and Caterhams. Best races were the Classic/Mega Caterham races with both classes providing frantic racing.
The only downside of the day was the 95 minute lunchbreak. This is one of my pet hates at meetings and BARC are notorious for having far too long a break. Personally I reckon 30 minutes maximum,we haven't paid good money to watch the grass grow, it's the on track action that counts.
Admission was £10 (£5 DPRAC discount) and programme was £2

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Donington Park Sunday 29th September 2013

Image
Another Sunday, another visit to Donington....This time for a Motor Sport Vision Racing organised meeting where the headline event was the finale of the BRDC Formula 4 championship. 12 races on the bill included 3 for the Mini Challenge, 2 each for Production BMW's, F3 Cup and Radical SR3 Challenge along with the aforementioned Formula 4 plus a 1 hour Lotus Cup UK race. The BRDC F4 championship has been one of the season's highlights. Pitched against the newly winged Formula Ford at the start of the year for drivers wanting to start their climb on the single-seater ladder, the series can quite easily claim to have "won" the battle with grids hovering around the 20 mark for most of the year. 18 cars entered Donington as those drivers who'd got no say in the title race left for pastures new or ran out of money. To have 6 drivers in with a mathematical shout at winning the championship going into the final 3 races says much for the competitiveness of the series...
Read more

Donington Park Sat/Sun May 19/20 2012

Image
Back to Donington this weekend for the visit of "Superstars". No, not the famous BBC show of the 70's and 80's where top sportsmen of the day competed against each other in squat thrusts and Kevin Keegan falling off his bicycle... These Superstars are an Italian based championship for mighty V8 powered saloons, 18 of which were present. They made an impressive spectacle on a dry track as their first session on a damp Saturday morning made the cars look the unwieldy beasts they are. A star studded entry list with former British Grand Prix driver Johnny Herbert driving a Maserati Quattroporte, plus former GP drivers Gianni Morbidelli (Audi) & Vitantonio Liuzzi (Mercedes). Indeed Morbidelli was the star of the weekend as he won both races very easily in an Audi RS5 that was the class of the field. Fellow Audi driver, Johan Kristoffersson, (who started from the back in the first race due to competing in the Scandinavian Touring Car Champinship on Saturday) finished 2n...
Read more

Silverstone Saturday 5th September 2015

Image
After a 3 week "Summer" break, or should that be a 3 week Autumn/Winter break given the less than Summery August weather, The Spectator ventured to Silverstone for the first day of the World Series by Renault meeting. Starting at Donington in the mid 00's and then moving to Silverstone in 2008 the "Renault Weekend" was always a highlight in the calendar. Free tickets were given away in their thousands and huge crowds turned up every year. Featuring the core Renault championships of Formula Renault 3.5, Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup and a Megane based saloon series the UK saw a round each year until 2011. After a 3 year hiatus the Renault weekend was back . No free tickets this time around though but a very reasonable £10 on the gate each day and a weekend ticket for £12 if bought in advance. The enormous crowds of yesteryear were not in evidence on Saturday and a crowd figure of 20,000 was quoted for the weekend which would appear to be that 19,500 turned up o...
Read more