The 1908 Itala Trophy Meeting - 13/14 April
2002
SILVERSTONE AGAIN
Having not got my **** into gear as my
twenty- something daughters so charmingly say, I (Stephen Curtis) found myself
spectating at Silverstone for the third time this year despite the fact that I
have yet to hear a cuckoo and the blasted heath has not made its eventual
transformation into the baking plain.
My first visit was to the 'Pom' the
VSCC’s annual ice-breaker where the only people more foolish (perhaps foolhardy
would be kinder) are the frozen onlookers like myself. 'Meet the people and get
the enthusiasm going’ I told Annie as I left her throwing another log on the
fire.
The next sortie was to the HGPCA practice
day on my birthday, so I left the trusty Audi at home and dug the Dino (for
sale but not yet on the TOPS website) out after its winter spent hiding from
the surplus salt that the Somerset authorities have been trying to get rid of
all winter. Eventually they succeeded in causing a major accident, as, although
there was no ice, they spread a lot down on the road 'in case' and it
deliquesced (to coin a phrase) and some hapless yokel inverted his car on the
resulting slime and caused a 10 mile tail-back; whatever next! Martin Morris
came to stay the night before and with a little encouragement from him we had a
good run on the secret little roads with no speed limit, which join the M5 to
Silverstone. The practice day was great fun with loads of the right people with
the right cars, only marred by the early closure of the greasy spoon before
tea-time.
As they found in the first war if you are
foolish enough to repeatedly raise your head above the trenches sooner or later
someone will take a pot-shot at you and so it proved. Like lambs to the
slaughter Martin and I homed in on Trisha Pilkington for a welcome kiss and
cuddle only to be delegated the reporters task. 'We only came for the beer'
fell on deaf ears.
Incipient Alzheimer’s makes it easier to
let people down without taking a conscious decision to do so; this was working
well until Richard Pilkington called on the following Tuesday with a trailer to
collect Alex’s fresh (new would surely be defamatory) and marvellous 1750
Zagato Alfa Romeo which had perspired on the motorway nice and handy to my
back-yard. Her indoors had asked him to enquire whether Martin and I had
finished the magnum opus as the deadline was this week! What about my winter
rebuild and Martin’s multiple house, car and motorbike acquisition programme
(as befits a newly bionic gentleman), I thought. Getting through to the Morris
family on this has become like ringing a digital call centre (all recorded
messages, no actual people) so I knew there was no alternative but to put mouse
to paper.
Getting into the swing of using old cars
I chose to go back to Silverstone in one of the family Talbot’s, GO 53 (also
quietly for sale with its three team-mates, the only pre-war works team being
offered as a package this week), as I had returned the Dino to base after
collecting Sarah from Heathrow on Friday morning. I had another great run but
did miss those EXTRA 4000rpm. I checked into the usual farm-house where true to
form Humphrey Avon had a house party going and we all went out for a splendid
dinner in a local pub, complete with fish from the Virgin Islands and a German
psychiatrist.
Race-day dawned, no rain just mist (not
of the German variety) and I elected to take Rupert Avon to his 3/4½ Bentley
racer to be sure of paddock entry. Bearing in mind this was the first
co-promoted VSCC/BRDC event officialdom seemed to be at a low ebb and I needn’t
have worried .The next pleasant surprise was a large and well got-up programme
with a sympathetic article about Patrick Lindsay as well as all the usual
information. The best was yet to come, for the first time ever the BRDC had invited
the hoi polloi into their palace and stands, which look like a cross between
the Sydney opera house and Sainsbury's at Plymouth. They afforded great viewing
and warmth not to mention food and drink with a silver service, a far cry from
the aforementioned ‘greasy spoon’! I’m sure the punters thought it an immense
improvement over previous years and good value for a £10 fee and one’s VSCC
membership card (or someone else’s ----Martin).
Do I really have to mention the cars?
Here goes:-
The noisiest, was the confection brewed
up by Valentine Lindsay and chums for a future Le Mans (one of the few cars
there which claimed no history, nor was believed to have existed before in any
shape or form) which was launched over a splendid lunch in the ex-Mclaren marble
floored pit.
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Talbot and Delage Pictures by Toby Heelis
Driver of the Day, was Charles Dean for
finishing a good 3rd in his Blackgatti type 51 (rarer than the more
usual Bluegatti) ahead of much more modern cars in the pre-war scratch race.
We didn’t stay until the end of Saturday,
let alone Sunday, as a dinner date and Susie beckoned the bionic man. At first
sight it would seem from the programme that as the years go by, although the
vintage members get older, the cars get younger. The evidence being the serried
ranks of fifties sports cars, formula juniors and rear- engined Coopers. It is
easy to forget that when I joined the club in 1960 the Chain-drive ‘Nash that
my father felt was so inferior to his 3.4 Jaguar (he had a point, though I
didn’t admit it at the time) was actually only 30 years old, whereas these ‘modern’
cars are nearly 50 already.
Anyone that didn’t have a bl**dy good day
(or days) out shouldn’t have gone and those that stayed at home should be
ashamed.
S.C.