Donington Park Saturday 1st June 2013

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 grey skies and rain but it was a very pleasant day for spectating with sunny skies and warm temperatures. Racing started before lunch with a 100 minute race for the GT4 Astons. The Vantage is a fantastic looking and sounding car but only 10 were in evidence for this race and the grid was "bolstered" by a 1961 DB4 and a 1998 DB7 to reach 12 starters. You'd have thought that with only 12 cars, drivers would have plenty of room not to crash into each other but you'd be wrong. The pole sitting car went off heavily at McLeans on the first lap, on the restart after a safety car, 3 more cars crashed at Redgate and 2 more collided again at McLeans. All this within the first 20 minutes! I have to say that this was one of the worst "races" I've seen in a very long while.
The best races of the remaining 6 were easily the pair of Porsche Club encounters. 31 cars on the grid and battles throughout the field. While there were good grids in all the other races, the length of races (30/45 minutes) makes it hard work to watch. As with the Historic Festival a month ago, I feel that although drivers get their money's worth with longer races, I find it's a case of simply driving around rather than racing competitively for a shorter distance. I shouldn't grumble though- I can think of worse ways to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon!
Admission was £10 (£5 DPRAC discount which, for some reason, the man in the ticket booth was reluctant to give me at first) and a very good programme £3
One word of warning for the Donington visitor. The Download music festival takes place at the circuit over the 15th/16th weekend and a lot of work was taking place for it already. At least there weren't any light bulbs and bunting draped on the catch fencing like last year......yet!

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