The Motor Racing Spectator

55 GT3 cars....a decent weather forecast.....£30 in the wallet...plus a large flask of Yorkshire Tea...! Yes it was time for The Spectator to go to one of the highlights of the racing year. The Blancpain GT Series has established itself as THE place to race your very expensive GT3 car. The week before at Brands Hatch had seen  the Sprint version of the series while at Silverstone it was the turn of the 3-Hour Endurance Cup. Silverstone was bathed in late Spring sunshine when I arrived at 8.45am but following overnight rain the circuit was wet but drying rapidly. Kicking off proceedings was qualifying for the weekend's second Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup race. A large entry of 30 cars for a class that bucks the trend in modern single-seater racing. With the FIA intent on homogenising the single-seater ladder from F4 to F3 to F2 to F1, Formula Renault fits in as an excellent training series with a calendar that races on mostly F1 circuits. With Renault increasing its backing for ...

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....

At long last...! With a long dark Winter (almost...) over, the 2017 Car racing season burst into life with a 750MC meeting at Donington. The advent of March always gets The Spectator excited and as my enthusiasm level was very high I decided to do both days of the meeting held on the full 2.5 mile GP circuit. Saturday was forecast to be dry AM and damp PM...alas the meteorological "experts" got it very wrong and it was definitely a case of Wet AM, Damp and eventually drying PM!! The 750MC never ceases to amaze with it's portfolio of Championships and Series almost always producing large entries and entertaining racing. Saturday's timetable looked to be the better day of the weekend and this proved to be the case. 2 red flags in the morning's qualifying sessions and an oil spillage in the Sport Specials session that had to be jet-washed off the already wet circuit, led to an early lunch break being called which turned out to be a very wise decision. Wise beca...

There's nothing much good about the month of January is there?! Christmas and the New year celebrations are a rapidly fading memory, the bank balance is rapidly shrinking and the waistline is rapidly expanding. One way of breaking up the mid-winter gloom and doom is to go to the annual Autosport International show at the NEC near Birmingham....so I duly did! With the NEC charging £12 to park your car these days, I made the decision to travel by train early on Saturday morning which having done some Maths probably turned out to be the slightly cheaper travel option.... I've always preferred to see racing cars on track and in a racing situation. Watching testing has never really appealed and although Museum's are very interesting and worthy, a stationery,silent racing car is a curious beast. The main reason for going to the show for the second consecutive year was to garner as many fixture lists as possible from clubs, circuits and organisers in a bid to try and make sens...

Ho,ho,ho....For the first time since 2011, The Spectator headed to Mallory Park for the circuit's annual Plum Pudding meeting. After the mass over consumption of Turkey, alcohol, chocolate and Sprouts the day before, Boxing Day has always been a day to enjoy a bit of fresh air and (perhaps more importantly...!) escape from family... For many years the old New Era Motorcycle club organised a full meeting on Boxing Day, then in the 90's car racing appeared on the programme in a bid to attract the four wheeled fan. The BRSCC and then the BARC organised the car side of things, usually a couple of races each for Saloons & Sportscars but there have been races for Minis, Caterhams & FF1600 in the past too.For the first time in many years the BRSCC took charge of car racing on this particular day. When New Era folded, Thundersport GB ran the bikes then the local East Midlands Racing Association club (EMRA) took over. My first Plum Pudding was in 1999 and the event has chang...

The Walter Hayes Trophy weekend at Silverstone is without question one of, if not the best weekends of motor racing in the UK. This was the 16th running of the WHT and is it really 13 years ago when the first running of the heats & knockout format took place? Where does the time go...I was in my 20's then....! Back in 2003 the final was won by Joey Foster and with Foster entered in the 2016 version, the WHT has a familiar, cosy feel to it year in year out. There is no better racing than Kent engined Formula Ford 1600 at it's best. I don't get to both days of 2 day meetings a lot these days but do try and go to both days of the WHT. Saturday morning saw qualifying for  the 6 Heats of the WHT along with  a couple of support races for Pre '70 Historics and Post '69 Historics. With just 10 minutes allocated to each Heat for qualifying, there was no hanging about by drivers eager to set a time. None of the expected front runners hit problems during qualifying thou...

The 66th running of the 750MC's Birkett Relay saw The Spectator off to Silverstone on a slightly misty Autumnal morning. An incredible entry of 70 teams meant that with the unique relay format, there would always be 70 cars on track for the duration of the 6 hour race...all being well!  I'd been to a few Birkett's in the past, even to the one-off 12 Hour relay at Snetterton in June 2000. Those were the days when enthusiasm knew no bounds!! My last Birkett was in 2004 on the National circuit at Silverstone that suffered from lots of accidents due to massive speed differential on the small National circuit layout. The 750MC then took the very wise decision to shift the event to the full GP circuit layout and the event continues to flourish with a capacity grid entering every year for the end of season gathering. 70 teams entered the 2016 version of the famous relay. With teams from the wide variety of championships run by the 750MC plus entries from other clubs, there ...