Donington Masters festival

[rogerwills]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Mr Forrester, you are of course entitled to your opinion- but in mine, what a load of ********! (Cue autocensor.....)

Spot on!

[rogerwills]

Originally Posted by grantp

Is the Formula Ford 1600 race a misprint or a first for Masters? (Or have Masters run FF1600 before but without my noticing?)

James Beckett has bought this to Masters / Top Hat.

He even coaxed me into one for Brands and I had a lot of fun in it as well. Didn't do too bad for an old fella......

http://www.tsl-timing.com/msvr/2011/112151.pdf

[grantp]

Excellent day today and this afternoon's racing had a good competitive feeling all the way through the grids and provided entertainment even when the period correct fragility of some of the grids thinned the field somewhat.

The final race of the day was action and interest all the way with an absolutely brilliant demonstration of close racing for the lead given by Rob Hall and Simon Hadfield for most of the first hour. Two Cobras taking on a one and a half hour endurance race as if it was a 10 minute sprint.

I very much doubt that that the lap charts will tell the full story of the number of changes for the lead per lap. Being a Gentleman Drivers race things changed slightly with the pit stops as Rob Hall was driving solo and Simon moved to an Elan for the remainder of the race but nevertheless although the immediacy of the battle for first spread to a slightly greater gap it was still small by endurance standards and the action continued, throughout the field, with hard driving all the way to the flag.

If tomorrow produces anything similar in any of the races we are in for a great day.

I think I have worked out my earlier puzzlement over the FF grid. The bulk of the entries are indeed for FFs of the age groups that have been promoted all season - a later period than the HSCC series is run for. But my check of the entry list had immediately spotted SH entered in the Lotus 69 and thus erroneously assumed that the race had been re-targeted at the older cars. Not so as far as I can tell. The qualifying session tomorrow morning should be interesting.

Hardly any work for the safety car in today's races. It was a good job it was also the pace car - Terry needed something to do to stop him taking root!

[percy]

I went up to spectate on Saturday and had an enjoyable time watching the racing as well as mooching around in the paddock.
Here is a selection of photos - as usual send me a DM (PM?) if you want me to search for pics of your car.














It's a hard life... Getting 'in the zone'?

A good grid for the 'Gentlemen Drivers'

[911thillclimber]

Sunday, just got back from a very sunny Donnington(!)

Great day's racing, fab cars and some grids though very sparse at times were nevertheless very good to watch.
I think i could have taken about 8 favorite cars home..usually there is only one.

[MartinSmith]

Well what can one say?

Well you know me I'm hardly lost for them normally!

On behalf of The Masters Team and of course all in Race Control, I would just like to thank all the drivers and teams for making this weekend once again a highlight of the historic racing calandar. The driving standards as always were great and the mix of cars and racing made the weekend seem to go so quick.

In the debrief the MSA steward said "I don't know what you guys have here....but you should bottle it and sell it to others!" He is going to request to be allocated it again next year. The last race last night was so good that it seemed like it was only ten minutes long not an hour and a half!

Thanks to you all who took part from all us lot in Race Control

Cheers
Claire Smith

[terence]

I can only second Claires words,very well behaved drivers,very efficient marshals. Great weekend of racing. Would have been even better if a certain Mr Smith had been able to attend,however,there is always next year John
Special thanks to a certain person for entrusting the SC for my use,also to Chris for sitting alongside for the w/end,not too bad a car was it?
Always a pleasure working with the 'Dream Team',same again next year

[Giraffe138]

Originally Posted by grantp

Is the Formula Ford 1600 race a misprint or a first for Masters? (Or have Masters run FF1600 before but without my noticing?)

I heard at Donington that Messrs. Herbert, Blundell & Coyne are currently out shopping for suitable FF chassis...........

[Newall Andy]

Originally Posted by terence bower

I can only second Claires words,very well behaved drivers,very efficient marshals. Great weekend of racing. Would have been even better if a certain Mr Smith had been able to attend,however,there is always next year John
Special thanks to a certain person for entrusting the SC for my use,also to Chris for sitting alongside for the w/end,not too bad a car was it?
Always a pleasure working with the 'Dream Team',same again next year

Hey... odd one this. When you picked me up in the GT40 during the SRM race, you may have wondered why I was to one side of you and not directly behind ?.

When you reached a certain speed the rear wing went up and blanked off your flashing lights in the rear window ! well it did when your sitting 6" of the floor in a GT40 anyway.

You would think the might of Merc should have worked that one out... oh and by the way, your power slide out of Redgate was good to watch.

Andy.

[terence]

Quite strange Andy! The 'wing' is actually an air brake,dont recall using the brakes that often. The dash switch was set to the off position as well.As for the slide,totally unprovoked,had you seen the rear tyres,you would understand the reason why.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by terence bower

Quite strange Andy! The 'wing' is actually an air brake,dont recall using the brakes that often. The dash switch was set to the off position as well.As for the slide,totally unprovoked,had you seen the rear tyres,you would understand the reason why.

Terry,

I noticed the rear 'thing' pop up a couple of times but not at times when I had an opportunity to wonder what it was doing. I assumed it was just a spoiler thing like so many others. Didn't think about it hiding the light either!

If airbrake is its only purpose could it be that no matter what you switch off there are certain conditions under which it will always operate?

The pne time it properly registered with me was, as I recall, when you owere about to peel off into the pit lane. So accelerated out of the esses and then decelerated although I don't remember seeing brake lights as it popped up.

[Giraffe138]

I couldn't resist posting this pic of Paul Knapfield demonstrating how unwise it was to go off the dry line entering the Esses......


By giraffe138 at 2011-09-04

[percy]

Taken with too-high a shutter speed as it looks fairly static here, but we did wonder if the budgets have been slashed so much that you can't run to a proper 'plate' Having to blu-tack a printed 'Safety Car' sign to the number-plate sort of detracted from the overall supercar image

[terence]

No blue-tac was used,I promise Those 'plates' were only meant for a number mask.
As for budget slashing,do you know the cost of one of these.

[chunterer]

Is that Alex Elliott's Batmobile you snapped on Saturday percy? I didn't see that or the 2 XJ12's anywhere on Sunday?

Overall enjoyed the day, the 66TC race was great in those conditions, seeing Falcon's squirming around on power out of Redgate all the way to the top of the hill was a sight to behold. The driving was excellent, so many potential shunts avoided by good use of mirrors and awareness of other cars around etc.

Shame the World Sportscar Masters was so thin, yet it was a treat to see the BMW M1, Gitanes Lola.

The F1's are always good value - always a good idea to get those on a Historic racecard.

Interesting that giraffe mentions those drivers potentially looking for FF chassis, could've sworn I saw Dave Coyne wandering around in the Paddock..... bit older and with shorter greyer hair than those old blonde locks?

Or it may have been someone else entirely!!

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Is that Alex Elliott's Batmobile you snapped on Saturday percy? I didn't see that or the 2 XJ12's anywhere on Sunday?

Looks like Alan Tice's CSL that he was sharing with Chris Conoley. See it didn't race on Sunday, and neither did Vince W or Chris Scragg is his XJ12C. What XJS was Richard Masters driving- can't picture the car in my head?

[terence]

Only saw Allan and Chris briefly on Saturday Mike,not sure why they didn't show for Sunday,I will be speaking to Chris a little later on though.

[Mike Bell]

Was going to apologise for spelling Allen's name wrong, but see I am not the only one

Third time lucky......

[terence]

He still looks around when called.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by terence bower

He still looks around when called.

All that matters

[gary396]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

................What XJS was Richard Masters driving- can't picture the car in my head?

This one Mike:

[gary396]

Finally got time to sort some photos out so here goes. I wasn't there on the Saturday so starting with Sunday's first race which took place on a very slippery surface with almost constant drizzle and light rain:

[MartinSmith]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Looks like Alan Tice's CSL that he was sharing with Chris Conoley. See it didn't race on Sunday, and neither did Vince W or Chris Scragg is his XJ12C. What XJS was Richard Masters driving- can't picture the car in my head?

Vince came up to RC on the Sunday, he had a problem and was very apologetic to us (Rachel etc) that he would not be able to run bless him. Was indeed a shame

[gary396]

Few more from race 5:

[gary396]

A much bigger field for this race which started off wet but the track gradually dried out towards the end as the rain eased up. It saw some good battles right the way through the field between the big Fords and others such as the Cortinas and Minis.