The Motor Racing Spectator

The Spectator is back! Apologies to the loyal readers (or reader) of the blog for the lack of updates in June. I usually go through a mid-season lull but it happened a bit earlier this year. If the meeting at Mallory Park on June 23rd had contained more than 5 races I would have gone but it didn't. If it wasn't for the coldest March in the UK for 50 years, it would have been another week without a meeting  as the 750MC fixture that should have taken place on March 23rd was postponed due to the small inconvenience of 3 feet of snow on the circuit. It was swiftly rescheduled for June 30th and thankfully it was a warm, humid day this time around. June 30th was the date for another minor clubbie taking place in the East Midlands at Silverstone but thankfully there were plenty of marshals at Donington who weren't prepared to be showered in exploding tyres....Crowd levels at Donington were slightly lower to that of Silverstone however! The 750MC had kept the same series on t...

After a 7pm finish at Donington the night before, it was up at the crack of dawn for a trip to Silverstone and a meeting that I'd been looking forward to all year. On the equivalent Sunday a year ago the Blancpain Endurance Series provided a superb 3 hour race in wet weather. Thankfully it was dry and sunny this year (if a little cool in the wind) and a superb 57 cars took the start at 2.50pm. The British GT series started 48 cars last weekend on the same circuit so there appear to be no cracks in the GT3 class at the present time. 9 different manufacturers are represented in the Blancpain series and after qualifying on Sunday morning it was the "works" Aston Martin Vantage of Darren Turner/Stefan Mucke/Frederic Makowiecki who took pole and went on to win the 3 hour race with a fairly comfortable 20 second margin over the 2nd place Audi R8 of Stephane Ortelli/Rene Rast/Laurens Vanthoor. The RJN Nissan led the race early on, having qualified 2nd, but faded as the race w...

It was back to The Spectator's spritual home of Donington for the first time in a month for an Aston Martin Owners Club 1 day meeting. AMOC have re-organised their portfolio of championships in recent years and have formed an alliance with MotorSportVisionRacing to "run" their meetings. It's fair to say that they were in serious danger of folding as a race meeting organiser, as for several years entries waned considerably. Probably a victim of the burgeoning historic scene, they have reduced their own series and at Donington the club ran Intermarque, 50's Sports Cars, Equipe GTS and the grandly titled AMR GT4 Challenge of Great Britain (more of which anon.....). The Historic Racing Drivers Club briefly dabbled in running their own meetings last year but in a bid to cut costs have aligned with AMOC and provided a big entry of Touring Greats. The 7 races were boosted by a double-header for the Porsche Club championship. The dawning of Summer usually means slate g...