VSCC Donington, June, 2004

The excitement was palpable, the tension infectious - early arriving competitors rubbed their sleepy eyes to watch the sky. A helicopter hovered overhead – was Schumacher arriving in the Ferrari paddock? The helicopter was not red so surely not. The buzz was intense – more people gathered to watch and whisper as three police cars then zoomed to a halt by the pits. Police officers rushed in to the garages. Why were they there? Cars were being searched – what for? And then rubbish bins were checked – was this a film set? The crowd increased – then gasps of astonishment as Carlos Monteverdi was led from the pits in a firm ‘arm-lock’, put in a car and driven away, closely followed by the other two police cars and the helicopter. Chinese whispers abounded. It was some hours before Carlos appeared again – this time without escort. Apparently, dashing up the motorway to the circuit, fast and in the outside lane, he was balked by a Citroen estate car. Despite much hooting and flashing the prat remained where he was so Carlos overtook on the inside, wound down his window and waved his fist. Prat immediately reported him to the police for threatening him with a gun. No charges were brought against Carlos.

The weekend seemed rather tame after that but here are some notes: The wind and rain on Friday night were awful. Tania and James had been due to sleep with 4-month-old Archie in their tent on top of the Landrover. Luckily for them Jane and Alex Boswell had opted to stay in their motorhome in the paddock and ‘donated’ their Ferrari Challenge hotel room – various people congratulated the Boswells on their baby.

There were several drivers’ briefings during the day and it was possible to choose which to attend although this was not made known in the instructions. “Is the starting procedure with lights or flag?” received the reply “I don’t know”. And for the cars instructed to start from the pit lane outside the Ferrari pits instead of the assembly area, “how do we get into the pit lane?” The reply, “I don’t know”. A later call at the main assembly area elicited the same information so it all became a bit of guesswork.

The majority of competing cars in the VSCC paddock were displayed as requested by Stuart Pringle, however a few modern cars and vans spoilt the line-up and there was no paddock marshal to remonstrate with them. Alan Cottam was presented with a 70^th birthday cake and serenaded by what appeared to be a Salvation Army band. AON provided drinks for anyone who turned up in the ERA marquee on Saturday evening where there were 12 ERAs on display – all of them painted in different colours. Their race was on Sunday afternoon in torrential rain. David Morris and John Ure started from the back of the grid - John ended up in the gravel and the race was won by Ludovic Lindsay – good to see him back on the race track.

The top fenced paddock was almost entirely taken up by Ferrari with huge transporters and all cars hidden in the pit garages, some of which were closed to the paddock visitors. There was no doubt that the Ferrari presence had increased the spectator attendance of over 12,000 but it did nothing for the VSCC competitors and enthusiasts and rather destroyed the ambiance, as did the Saturday and Sunday split of the meeting which had many competitors leaving on Saturday night and others arriving on Sunday morning.

The Team race was 3-hours long, finishing after 7 pm and apparently greatly enjoyed by the drivers, although most of the public had left long before the end! All TOPS entrants received a very useful jacket from RoadMap. Sadly the meeting clashed with Beaulieu autojumble and the St. John Horsfall at Silverstone.

PGP

VSCC Donington

June 8^th & 9^th 2002

David Bennett Maserati A6GCM about to be overtaken by Richard Pilkington Cisitalia D46

Photograph by Richard Hampson

There was a time when a Vintage Sports Car Club race meeting, wherever it was held, had a predictable format. They consisted of some feature scratch races for Historic Racing Cars, Vintage Racing Cars, Pre-War Racing Cars and latterly an Invitation race for 1950 s Sports Racing Cars. This mixture was leavened with several short handicap races to accommodate the desire of members with less competitive cars (or possibly less competitive members) to get a bit of sport.

This meeting at Donington certainly broke that mould. In addition to all of those mentioned above, although there was only one handicap, there were races for pre-’66 Grand Prix cars, Group C Endurance cars, Drum Brake Sports Cars (of the 50s as per Monaco and the HGPCA), the Historic Motor Racing News Sports and GT Endurance race, not to mention the Team Race for Original Pre-War Sports Cars as championed by Bob Wood a fugitive from the old Coy’s International Silverstone.

This (to my mind) enhanced format will not have pleased all the members some of whom expressed their conservative opinions at the last VSCC AGM, and I suspect it reflects the drive of their outgoing President, Julian Ghosh, rather than incoming Peter Glover, but we shall see!

I am in favour of the club getting its head out of its own exhaust pipe and looking towards the horizon to see what it can contribute to the historic scene as a whole, rather than getting stuck in a narrow time-frame which has led to enormous ingenuity on the part of members who would like to go quicker, modifying their cars beyond their original manufacturers’ wildest imaginings. On the other hand, the infrastructure seemed to creak when faced with this very ambitious two day meeting, as did the very crowded paddock. Signing-on and scrutiny on Friday evening would have helped enormously.

The signing-on routine was particularly fraught and sorely tested the patience of officials and competitors alike. There must be a better way! One unfortunate in the Pre-war Team Race took virtually all day to persuade the officials that his USA licence etc was in order despite having raced with the VSCC at Silverstone in April. He was thus only able to compete in one leg of the two-day event.

Despite all this and some pretty awful weather the meeting will surely be judged a success and with a bit of tuning could be an excellent addition to the calendar.

There were the inevitable logistical difficulties I wanted to support Bob Wood’s race with my Talbot as well as the HMRN Endurance series in the HWM, which I had signed up for at the beginning of the year. Both events involved driver changes and I shared the Talbot with David Morris, who had a brilliant weekend as despite appalling conditions he won his 5^th Seaman Trophy race in Martin’s ERA. In the HMRN series James Wood is my co-driver but he was competing against us in an Alta in the pre-war race.

The pre-war race was won by Flavien Marçais and Gareth Burnett in the Talbot 105 I had sold John Ruston a few years ago, Richard, who had fastest lap, was a close second in the Lago because it took him longer as a single driver to run around his car than it did the youngsters to swap half-way through each race. David and I finished 9^th but the combination was good enough to secure us the team prize (if there was one!). On the second day it was raining quite hard and when I took over from David I literally could not see a thing. It was not until I got back to the paddock, when I was complaining to him about it, that I realised that he had removed the aero-screen on his warm up lap; although he said it was even worse with it. It really is ironic that the VSCC should need the impetus from outside its own organisation to get a grid together of the cars which should form its CORE, it is a measure of how far they have strayed down the ‘specials’ route.

The Endurance race was fore-shortened because the organisers were running out of time, so although I had started the HWM with a 50min stint (the max. permitted) to be followed by a similar effort from James, leaving me with a final 20 mins to the flag; it was a puzzled James who took the flag and I didn’t get my last drive. Because some others had changed and James had moved briskly up through the field we finished 10^th. The winners were Flavien and Nick Wigley in the latter’s Iso and second was the Cobra of James Lindsay and Bill Wykeham. I was rather surprised to be summoned along with several others to the Clerk of the Course. Naturally I assumed that they wished to pass comment on the two black stripes of my rubber that James had left in the pit-lane after I had handed over to him. However the fault was mine for entering the pits too quickly, so it was I that had to eat humble pie, on reflection it is the first time in 40 years of racing that anyone has ever accused me of going too quickly; such a shame that I chose an inappropriate place as otherwise I could have used it to silence the family who always accuse me of going too slowly! Mind you I felt better about being in the headmaster’s study when David owned up to having been there as well for a flag infringement. He suffered the added embarrassment of his mobile phone ringing in the middle of his dressing down!

As usual I didn’t do much spectating but the hospitality suites of the HGPCA, Gregor Fisken for the Endurance and the VIP facilities for guests of the VSCC all afforded excellent grub and a good view.

Last but not least it was nice for James and I to be able to call in on our way back from work (the Endurance Race) to the TOPS barbeque attended by 56 members, under the splendid awning of the Wilson Pantechnicon where a good time was being had by all. Many thanks, much better than paying a small fortune to rub shoulders with the racing legends and their commentator (hope that doesn’t sound like sour grapes, it isn’t, I don’t think I could have faced changing). Roll on a better organised event next year.

S.C.