Donington Park Sunday 19th October 2014

After a week off it was back to Donington for The Spectator for the BRSCC Championship Finals Weekend. A very busy timetable saw 8 races on Saturday along with 13 on Sunday. I only attended on the Sunday and was eagerly anticipating a good days racing. The BRSCC are a club "on the up" again these days and it was good to see a very busy paddock on arrival on Sunday morning.
2 weeks on from watching a large grid of Mazda MX5's race with the 750MC, there were yet more large grids of the Japanese sportscar evident on Sunday. 50 cars were entered and were split into A and B groups following qualifying and then a relegation and promotion system put in place so there was always something to fight for in both races. The racing was probably a little less frenetic than the 750MC version but entertaining none the less. The Mk3 MX5 have their own SuperCup series and a healthy 22 cars took part in the championship finale and provided the best Mazda race on this day. Abbie Eaton managed to hold on to her championship lead despite retiring after contact at Redgate as runner-up Tom Roche couldn't get the win he needed to win the title.
The first race of the day saw the days only Red Flag as the Production Golf GTi race saw the leaders collide at the Old Hairpin causing chaos behind. The pinball effect eventually saw 3 cars damaged on the run up to Schwantz Curve and the race restarted. With such a tight schedule this caused the mornings activities to run late but thankfully there were no other significant delays to report and the last race finished in the gathering gloom at 6.10pm.
As ever the Mighty Minis provided some excellent racing with the usual train of cars vying for the lead. Ian Slark winning both the race and the championship. The more powerful Super Mighty Minis is a strange series that has never had big grids with 13 cars on track at Donington.
There were 2 races for the Toyo Tires Porsche Championship which have classes for the modern Boxster and the definitely less modern 924! Entertaining they were too as the 2nd race featured a reversed grid to spice things up.
The Historic Racing Drivers Club ran their own meetings a few years ago but now run their portfolio with other clubs and the day featured a 30 minute race for "Allstars" and a 45 minute race for "Touring Greats". The Allstars race was a poor affair which featured a strange grid of cars ranging from a 4.5 litre TVR Griffith to a 1 litre Hillman Imp and the 30 minutes was simply a collection of old cars driving around. The Touring Greats race was slightly better as a more evenly matched large grid of 35 Pre'60 Historic Touring Cars took the start. The race was won by father and son Mike & Andrew Jordan's Austin A40 after a late safety car following the Alfa Romeo of Tom Shepard seizing up and spinning at the Old Hairpin and rather forlornly having to be dragged way with wheels not turning!
Overall an enjoyable days racing at Donington despite a chilly stiff breeze all day to test the stamina of the hardy few spectators evident! Admission was £10 with £5 DPRAC discount and programme £3.