Donington Park Sunday 30th April 2017
After a 6 week hiatus it was time for The Spectator to go to a (long overdue!) race meeting. In the week leading up to the weekend I was very tempted to go to Rockingham for British GT but in the end common sense prevailed and I plumped for the final day of the annual Donington Historic Festival organised by the Historic Sports Car Club.
As you can see from the ticket stub, entry on the day was a whopping £27 and with no discount for the humble Donington Supporters Club member either, I somewhat begrudgingly coughed up the cash as I was desperate to see some racing!
The Donington Historic Festival is a somewhat curious affair....it's essentially a padded out out HSCC meeting with a few "different" races scattered throughout the programme.
First up on Sunday morning was a 2 hour GT and Sports Car Cup race featuring a mammoth 40 car grid. The early stages saw a good battle for the lead between the AC Cobra's of Oliver Bryant and ex Touring Car driver Anthony Reid. A safety car exactly on the hour mark saw a raft of co-driver changes and helped the watching public make sense of the running order! Reid eventually retired and with Oliver handing over to his father Grahame the Bryant's easily triumphed by 38 seconds at the end of an eventful 2 hours. I wasn't impressed by the flag marshalling at the Old Hairpin during the race though as one spin by a car was completely missed and no yellow flag was waved at all....Given what happened to Billy Monger at the circuit a couple of weeks previously this was simply unacceptable.
There were separate races for rear engined and front engined Formula Junior's on the day. The Front engined race was a good one with a 3 car lead battle that saw the top 3 covered by just 0.754 seconds at the flag, John Sykes Merlyn winning out. The rear engined race saw a bigger entry and an early lead for teenager Benn Tilley's Lotus 22 who eventually retired handing the win to the Brabham BT6 of John Fyda.
Is there a better looking car than a Jaguar E-Type? A good question and there were plenty of the sleek beasts on show in the 40 minute Jaguar Classic Challenge race. Gary Pearson wining ahead of Ben Short.
Touring Cars from different era's were catered for in 3 different races on Sunday afternoon. The Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint of Andrew & Maxim Banks heading a horde of Lotus Cortina's to win the 40 minute U2TC (under 2 litre) pre'66 Touring car race. A Lotus Cortina did triumph in the 45 minute HRDC Coys Trophy race for pre'66 Touring cars in the hands of David Tomlin. Steve Soper ( yes that one in a Lotus Cortina) and Jack Drury (Ford Falcon Futura) were contesting the lead until a moment lapping a back marker at McLeans which led to both cars retiring sadly. This race won my vote for most entertaining of the day.....vote for least entertaining was easily a very poor Super Touring Car Challenge race that saw just 11 starters. A mishmash of proper Super Tourers plus a few Group A and S2000 machines made up the grid. Along with Group C is it maybe best to have left the spectacle of these machines to the memory instead of trying to keep racing this particular brand of "Historic" car?
The fastest race of the day was the 25 minute Historic Formula 2 race which saw a healthy grid of 23 cars and in the year when the F2 moniker has returned to life officially, it was good to see the old F2 in the flesh.The March 742 of Richard Evans winning.
A 60 minute RAC Woodcote Trophy race for pre'56 Sportscars rounded off the day's proceedings. 1 hour is probably too long for machines that are 60 years old or over and a wide disparity in speed and quality of machinery was evident. Frederic Wakeman/Patrick Blakeney-Edwards shared their Coper T38 and lapped the entire field to win the race.
I enjoyed the days racing at Donington, I'm not the biggest fan of Historic racing these days as there is a familiarity to most races that means that several can blend into one another. The quality of nearly all the races on this particular day was very good though and the swoops and curves of Donington are perfectly suited to Historic machinery.
It was good to see the renovated infield in use with lots of car clubs exhibiting their wares. Attendance wise this was a well attended event but not a huge crowd...the right crowd and no crowding as Brooklands used to say! It was good to be back trackside and hopefully it won't be 6 weeks before my next meeting.
As you can see from the ticket stub, entry on the day was a whopping £27 and with no discount for the humble Donington Supporters Club member either, I somewhat begrudgingly coughed up the cash as I was desperate to see some racing!
The Donington Historic Festival is a somewhat curious affair....it's essentially a padded out out HSCC meeting with a few "different" races scattered throughout the programme.
First up on Sunday morning was a 2 hour GT and Sports Car Cup race featuring a mammoth 40 car grid. The early stages saw a good battle for the lead between the AC Cobra's of Oliver Bryant and ex Touring Car driver Anthony Reid. A safety car exactly on the hour mark saw a raft of co-driver changes and helped the watching public make sense of the running order! Reid eventually retired and with Oliver handing over to his father Grahame the Bryant's easily triumphed by 38 seconds at the end of an eventful 2 hours. I wasn't impressed by the flag marshalling at the Old Hairpin during the race though as one spin by a car was completely missed and no yellow flag was waved at all....Given what happened to Billy Monger at the circuit a couple of weeks previously this was simply unacceptable.
There were separate races for rear engined and front engined Formula Junior's on the day. The Front engined race was a good one with a 3 car lead battle that saw the top 3 covered by just 0.754 seconds at the flag, John Sykes Merlyn winning out. The rear engined race saw a bigger entry and an early lead for teenager Benn Tilley's Lotus 22 who eventually retired handing the win to the Brabham BT6 of John Fyda.
Is there a better looking car than a Jaguar E-Type? A good question and there were plenty of the sleek beasts on show in the 40 minute Jaguar Classic Challenge race. Gary Pearson wining ahead of Ben Short.
Touring Cars from different era's were catered for in 3 different races on Sunday afternoon. The Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint of Andrew & Maxim Banks heading a horde of Lotus Cortina's to win the 40 minute U2TC (under 2 litre) pre'66 Touring car race. A Lotus Cortina did triumph in the 45 minute HRDC Coys Trophy race for pre'66 Touring cars in the hands of David Tomlin. Steve Soper ( yes that one in a Lotus Cortina) and Jack Drury (Ford Falcon Futura) were contesting the lead until a moment lapping a back marker at McLeans which led to both cars retiring sadly. This race won my vote for most entertaining of the day.....vote for least entertaining was easily a very poor Super Touring Car Challenge race that saw just 11 starters. A mishmash of proper Super Tourers plus a few Group A and S2000 machines made up the grid. Along with Group C is it maybe best to have left the spectacle of these machines to the memory instead of trying to keep racing this particular brand of "Historic" car?
The fastest race of the day was the 25 minute Historic Formula 2 race which saw a healthy grid of 23 cars and in the year when the F2 moniker has returned to life officially, it was good to see the old F2 in the flesh.The March 742 of Richard Evans winning.
A 60 minute RAC Woodcote Trophy race for pre'56 Sportscars rounded off the day's proceedings. 1 hour is probably too long for machines that are 60 years old or over and a wide disparity in speed and quality of machinery was evident. Frederic Wakeman/Patrick Blakeney-Edwards shared their Coper T38 and lapped the entire field to win the race.
I enjoyed the days racing at Donington, I'm not the biggest fan of Historic racing these days as there is a familiarity to most races that means that several can blend into one another. The quality of nearly all the races on this particular day was very good though and the swoops and curves of Donington are perfectly suited to Historic machinery.
It was good to see the renovated infield in use with lots of car clubs exhibiting their wares. Attendance wise this was a well attended event but not a huge crowd...the right crowd and no crowding as Brooklands used to say! It was good to be back trackside and hopefully it won't be 6 weeks before my next meeting.
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