Vintage Sports Car Club Silverstone
23rd
April, 2004 - Peter Hull Memorial Race Meeting
The meeting was a tribute to
Peter Hull who ran the VSCC for so long and so well and some of his old cars
were on show together with his splendid Gipsy Moth.
The massive transporters used
during the previous day of HGPCA testing left the paddock and life became
rather more civilised with the sun still shining. The VSCC are to be complimented on their request that all
competition cars be displayed nose forward to the centre paddock road - this
made an excellent display. There was a
special car park which housed well over 100 vintage cars and annoyed some
drivers who had arrived in Classic cars to be told they could not park in
it! The BRDC grandstand overlooking the
Complex was made available to members and provided excellent viewing of the
varied and good racing.
As usual there were many new
(old) cars and several brought along for a bit of fun like Dean Butler’s
dragster. The pit garages were bustling
with people chatting and mechanics working on engines– masses of stories and
mechanical thingies. The paddock atmosphere was lovely – just like it used to
be!
Alex Boswell was seen smiling a
great deal as he had his first proper drive in the Ferrari 625 which has had to
have numerous engine rebuilds in the last year. This was Alex’ first race since his aneurysm so it was a
particularly good occasion.
Tania Pilkington, who brought
14-day-old Archie along for his first race, lent her Cooper to her father
Richard and in Friday practice the selector fork in the gearbox broke. Richard and Nick Rossi rebuilt the gearbox
over the next six hours. Then on race
day a rear stub axle broke! Luckily the
Cisitalia was there and the powers-that-be allowed a car change so Richard
could have a race (and win his class!).
Paul Grist (P3 Alfa Romeo) and
Julian Majzub (Pacey-Hassan) both won their races and Charles Dean (Bugatti 51)
came second after a fantastic scrap. Alex’ Zagato Alfa Romeo went well –
Erika Pilkington, after a good practice day, went racing at Cadwell in her
Gemini; and Trisha was general dogsbody again, handing out more shirts and
‘sheepskin’ jackets from the ever
productive RoadMap.
This was a splendid VSCC race
meeting with 27 competing ‘TOPS’. It is
a great pity that the VSCC and the HGPCA cannot get their act together so that
we can do one race meeting with both clubs instead of rushing off next weekend
to Donington for an HGPCA race day.
HGPCA Test Day 22nd April, 2004
The HGPCA test day was the UK
race season’s opener and the sun shone - it was warm! The HGPCA shared their test day with several
other clubs. The fact that people could
go out and ‘race’ without a licence attracted a number of drivers and worried a
good deal more! However, they seemed to
behave themselves and it was an excellent way to learn the circuit and gain
some experience. There were sessions
when passengers could be taken round and it was a chance for the HGPCA
Arbuthnot Latham financial advisor sponsors to be taken for a ride in some of
the Credit Suisse decaled cars (oops!).
A fairly enjoyable day.
Sorry about the lack of pictures – still the same problem with this new XP system
P.G.P.