Donington Park Sunday 14th August 2016
The latest meeting for The Spectator saw me at Donington for a MSVR organised meeting that saw 8 races on the Sunday of a 2-day meeting. My Meetings have been very sporadic in the Summer of 2016, indeed this was my first visit to my local circuit for a couple of months.
Walking down the the Old Hairpin on Sunday morning I was shocked to see that where once stood the Donington Supporters Club enclosure is now a barren patch of grass!
 |
| A Sad Sight
The Club had given notice that they were to be evicted and are now based in Hospitality suites near Redgate corner. However it was as though they had never existed as, despite the remnants of some paving slabs, the entire area the Club had worked so hard to maintain has been wiped off the face of the Earth. Rumours of a Grandstand being built on the Hollywood banking can only be the reason for the rather drastic action the Circuit management have taken. The club has its foundations from the time Tom Wheatcroft fought to re-open Donington in the early 1970's. I first joined the club in the 1990's when their Enclosure was situated at McLeans. They were moved to Hollywood in the winter of 1999/2000 when the barriers were moved back at McLeans and now in 2016 there is no private enclosure at all.....very sad. In my personal opinion...circuit management don't want the club any more. With a drastically reduced admission concession for this season plus being banished to a poorly sited hospitality suite, it is obvious that the Club is being treated poorly. I wonder whether we'll see the circuit start a more "official" supporters club similar to Silverstone's where Season tickets could be sold (and more importantly revenue streams) could be kept "in house"...Interesting times ahead.
Now for the on track action itself....The 8 races scheduled by MotorSportVisionRacing (MSVR) on the Sunday were double headers for the club's Allcomers series and Radical European Masters plus single races for Monoposto 1800, GT Cup,Monoposto 2000 and Trackday Championship.
There were 15 starters for the Allcomers races..not great but just enough to keep one entertained due to a wide variety of machinery throughout the field. Barry Liversidge winning both races easily in his Radical. More Radicals were on show in the 2 European Masters hour long races. Only 14 starters though which is very disappointing considering there were 20+ out at Silverstone 3 weeks ago. Quite how I've managed to see 4 x 60 minute Radical races in 3 weeks is a slight mystery to me as I'm not the biggest fan of Radical racing! Tony Wells/James Littlejohn triumphing in both races which thankfully didn't have too many retirees in them . Both races did feature the appearance of the Safety car though and as is the way with MSVR, the Safety Car was a frequent sight during the day!
Best grids of the day and best racing too were provided by both Monoposto races. 27 started the 1800 race which saw Cousins Jason and Jeremy Timms finish 1-2. Interesting to note the prescence of Channel 4 F1 commentator Ben Edwards racing in his FF1600 Van Diemen RF92. Edwards was a keen racer in his youth and whilst watching at the Esses on the GP layout he was completely stuffed by class rival Geoff Fern whilst attempting to pass and did very well to avoid contact. If he was commentating in his helmet, Edwards would have a few choice words to say I'm sure!
The F3/2000 Monoposto race also saw a big grid of 24 cars start...it would have been 25 but Championship leader Ben Cater non-started as his Dallara caught fire in the morning's qualifying session and sadly did not get as far as Redgate on the warm up lap despite a valiant repair attempt. Chris Hodgen's Dallara F304 winning a race where, having started on pole, he dropped back to 3rd initially before clawing his way back to the front.
With a timetable that had the last race of the day finishing at 18.55...we didn't need any long delays thank you very much. Guess what....barrier damage in the GT Cup race, a red flag and a long delay! What should have been a 50 minute race was red flagged following a sizeable shunt at McLeans for the Lamborghini Gallardo of Neil Huggins. I walked up to the crash site and the tyre barrier was in a hell of a mess. Good work from circuit staff eventually repaired the area...out of bounds for spectators though for the rest of the day as the concrete barrier behind the tyre wall was pushed back..not for the first time at Donington. The 30 minute restart saw a farcical situation arise. Success Seconds added to mandatory pit stop time that weren't reduced in length, despite the shorter race, saw championship leader Jordan Witt's Bentley penalised very harshly. A safety car period too in the reduced length race saw a rather unsatisfactory race ensue that was won by the Audi R8 of Nigel Hudson/Adam Wilcox.
With the days final race-the Trackday Championship 45 minute race - finishing at 19.35, this was a long day at Donington! 32 started the Trackday Championship encounter, a series run in similar line to the Trackday Trophy that had raced the previous day. Encouraging the Trackday driver to get their race licence and go racing the grid saw a wide spectrum of cars and was won by the BMW M3 of Richard Bromley.
|
 |
| Sunset at Melbourne Hairpin..... |
Comments
Post a Comment