Donington Park Sunday 25th August 2013

Another Sunday and another visit to Donington, this time for the visit of the Classic Sports Car Club to the East Midlands. Celebrating their 10th anniversary of existence this season the club caters for the racer on a budget. The main core of the CSCC's series run to a 40 minute race which enables costs to be shared between 2 drivers (if required).
Sunday saw 9 races along with 4 qualifying sessions in the morning. The days racing kicked off early with the first of 2 races for the German based Triumph Competition & British GT series. I had never seen this series race before and was very impressed with not only the size of the grid but also the quality of the racing. Funnily enough both races were won by the only 2 British interlopers in the field. The first race was won by Paul Conway's Morgan and the second by Brian White's Triumph TR4.
A large grid of large cars can only mean Jags! The lumbering beasts put on a good race and some entertaining scraps, especially in the more standard Class A.
There were 2 races for the MGBCV8 championship who were on an away day from the MG car club. This is a series that has seen dwindling numbers in recent years but an excellent turnout of 28 cars were on the grid today. Robert Spencer won both races fairly comfortably but there was some fantastic action further down the field. Not many people finish 2nd after spinning 3 times at Redgate in one race so take a bow Neil Fowler in the second race!
2 years ago on the same Bank Holiday weekend, Mallory Park hosted a revival race for Special Saloons which were highly modified cars that raced in the Donington GT championship in the late 70's/early 80's. 2 years later and just 12 cars on the grid for the Sunday race. Simon Allaway's mighty 5.5 litre Lotus Esprit easily won.
An enormous grid of 35 cars on the Magnificent Sevens grid and not all were Caterhams either, with a few other Kitcar marques thrown in. Winner on the road Peter Ratcliff was given a 30 second penalty after the race for being out of position on the rolling start and finished second behind Pascal Green's Caterham C400.
The pair of 40 minute races for the Swinging 60's category weren't the greatest races I've ever seen. The Group 2 race was red flagged after an accident at Redgate on the first lap and the Group 1 race was an appalling safety car interrupted affair. I certainly wasn't swinging after this particular race which will feature in the end of year prize for worst race of the year.....
Admission was £10 with DPRAC discount and an excellent A4 size programme was £3. Credit to David Smitheram who produced the programme which contained a rare thing in race programmes these days......something to read!