The Motor Racing Spectator

The Spectator ventured to Leicestershire's other circuit on Sunday for a meeting organised by the Classic Touring Car Racing Club. This was my first visit to the self styled "Friendly Circuit" in 2012 as my last visit was on Boxing Day for the Plum Pudding meeting last December 26th funnily enough. For various reasons there aren't many car racing meetings at Mallory this year, indeed this was only their 3rd of the season. As to why, well Mallory has always been a bike circuit first and foremost but was always a good club venue for cars, but with BRSCC not even having one meeting this year it has to rely on the smaller one-off clubs to help fill the schedule. The CTCRC usually run their portfolio of championships within BARC meetings but once a year they run their own meeting at Mallory, The AUTOGLYM Classic Festival to give its official title. 12 races were run all of 15 minutes in length and after spectating at curfewless Donington for most of the year it was unusua...

As the Spectator was still in a state of shock & general mental confusion following his weekend spent at Donington for the European Le Mans Series, I couldn't bring myself to go to any motor sport on the 21/22 July weekend! With batteries almost fully recharged it was back for more punishment, sorry enjoyment, at Donington on Saturday for the visit of the Historic Racing Drivers Club. The HRDC is a new club this year that has been started by Julius Thurgood who, having formed the Masters series of Historic events, left and created another set of races for the very busy Historic motor racing scene. The grandly titled Coys International Trophy meeting consisted of 5 races with 3 being of 1 hour duration which were TC63/TC65 (for Pre'64 & Pre'66 Historic Group 2 Touring Cars), Touring Greats (for Pre '60 Touring Cars) and GTS65 (for over 1500cc Sports/GT cars) and 2 races of half hour length which were MGB50 (a series celebrating the 50th anniversary of the car) a...

6 Hours of Donington: 13 cars...... Perhaps a little harsh to publish a photo of grass growing but after a season of witnessing some very good racing at some very good meetings there had to be a weekend when my enthusiasm/sanity were tested to the full! All year I'd known that the newly conceived European Le Mans Series was on shaky ground as their first round at Paul Ricard attracted a 20 car field and the 2nd round at Zolder was cancelled altogether. However a couple of weeks ago the entry list stood at 21 for Donington so I thought what the hell, go for the weekend and as a big fan of Le Mans Prototype cars I reckoned it would be OK. As is usually the case when I buy tickets in advance I regret being so well organised as the entry started to dwindle from 21 to 18 to 15 and finally to 13 by the weekend. Donington showed no signs of cancelling the event, there was no sign of reducing the length and no sign of ticket price reduction so it was with a heavy heart I attended both d...

After the British Truck Grand Prix it was the other British Grand Prix for The Spectator with a visit to Friday Practice Day at Silverstone. At precisely 5.25am I set off from home in the knowledge that any arrival after 7/7.30ish would be too late and it turned out to be one of the best bits of planning I've ever made. The omens weren't good as the day before Silverstone were issuing warnings about the state of their campsites and with a terrible weather forecast for Friday it was no surprise that most of the car parks would be out of action too. I arrived at about 6.40 and made my way into the circuit -the question was though, would I get out in the evening! Track action for the day consisted of 2 x 90 minute sessions for Formula One, practice and qualifying for GP2 and single practice sessions for GP3, Porsche Supercup and Historic F1. The Becketts Grandstand was my choice for the morning for 2 reasons. 1-the view is tremendous and 2-it had a roof.....The first action at ...

And now for something completely different...Truck Racing. This weekend it was the turn of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship to visit Donington and after racing only the week before at Nogaro in the South of France, a healthy grid of 20 trucks took part over the 2 days. I hadn't seen trucks in action for many years and as a spectacle they were hugely impressive. Donington isn't the widest of circuits and the sight of 20 trucks hammering down the Craner Curves and into the Old Hairpin on the 1st lap of each race was quite a sight. Understandably passing was difficult but it did take place, especially in the 2nd race of each day where the top 8 finishers in the 1st race are reversed on the grid. Jochen Hahn and Antonio Albacete are clearly the quickest 2 rigs in the series and have done most of the winning in 2012 and each won a race this weekend. I liked the format used where each day is treated separately so there were 2 races on Saturday and 2 races on Sunday so fans ...