HRDC Touring Greats, Grand Touring Greats and AMOC Intermarque, Mallory 30th May

[Thundersports]

I should have stayed at home and watched that instead of being spoiled by a 6 car Mini grid on the GP loop at Brands!

[Lancsbreaker]

It was pretty good - unfortunately last race was scrubbed after a red flag on lap one when the camera car got over-enthusiastic on the exit from Gerrards and discovered that wet grass has a remarkably low co-efficient of friction - nearly made it but just collected the end of the barrier on the outside of Stebbe straight and was launched into a barrel-roll with twist - driver OK, fortunately, but the delay ran the race into curfew time.......

Still some great bits of racing - loved watching a 90s Ferrari Maranello Cup car dicing with a 40(?) year older Aston DB4......and Jag Mk1 3.4 dicing with an A40.......and lots of other entertaining stuff!

[LAK]

We got back late last night after a long day yesterday but ultimately successful and highly enjoyable. As everyone could see from the TV coverage the weather all day was horrid - a mixture of pretty heavy rain and drizzle which only stopped for the trip home which I guess was kind...

Anyway, in appalling practice conditions Jason and I just concentrated on keeping the Aurelia on track with any thoughts of a good time firmly out of our mind. We only had 15 mins to get both drivers through so our lowly grid position was no surprise.

In terms of the race, I don't know if people noticed but they didn't grid anyone up at the back which meant Jason was out of position - he knew where he should be but couldn't get there. That meant he had to work quite a bit harder to move up the pack at the start. He had a pretty reasonable start and spent a few laps siting things out and settling down before he picked off a few people. The weather was particularly difficult, very greasy and half way into the race the rain came down heavier. By the time I got in the car Jason had done really well and got us into a competitive position.

It's always difficult to get into a car in those types of conditions - the weather being variable and your co-driver doing well - no pressure then! However within a couple of laps I could feel the Aurelia dancing beneath me. it truly is magnificant in those conditions, four wheel drifting and allowing some close battling door handle to door handle with no fear that control would ever be lost. I truly loved my 20 mins - an absolute joy. And to our surprise a pretty decent result with a 15th overall and 2nd in class. i have to say a huge thank you for the driving standards - everyone was kind and considerate when lapping and fair but firm when racing.

And so to my little Fiat Abarth. Practice for the GT Greats (which my class was in) was some time after the Touring greats practice and by this time there was even more water in the circuit mixed with some oil. I was astounded to get out and find that the Abarth adored the conditions - it was simple on rails around the corners with no loss of traction. I whooped and yelled with delight as my little one gobbled up some of the GTs cars. A 20th grid position and class pole was a huge reward to both Jason and myself - Jason had mended the car before when the wipers and the starter button stopped working.

More of the race in a moment...

[LAK]

Slight delay due to a conference call!

Anyway, onto the grid and properly gridded up I was aware that I had to make a really great start or suffer being gobbled up amongst the GTs cars. I have to say that I had one of the best starts I've ever made - I gunned the engine, released the clutch and bam, instant traction. The car was small enough to find some gaps and I got through the crowd and into some air, not far behind the 2 glorious Alfas of James Wiseman and Richard Frankel. I did get taken by a couple of cars but I settled down to a good pace. After a few laps disaster, little did I know but someone had put down a lot of oil or coolant or something at the hairpin and my car had a massive lock up and no traction at all. There was a dreadful banging noise (which I now know to be the wheels trying to grip) and I thought I'd broken the car and came into the pits. Jason checked it over but nothing so out I went, now a lap down and almost last in class. Ouch...

So I put my head down but the car was acting very weird and I wasn't confident, especially at the hairpin and Devils Elbow. Geoff Turrall in the other Abarth wasn't slowing down at all and we had a lovely "battle" as he got past me (to lap me). Anayway, I decided to be sensible and to just try to catch as many of my class as possible - I managed to get past 3 which left me 3rd in class and I could see the Moggy in front - he spun at the hairpin and with one more lap I may have overtaken him but the flag came out and I came home a slightly disappointed 3rd in class (after my class pole) and 14th overall.

As the boys said, I should really have been disappointed, the engine performed very well (thanks Joe!), I had a great start, the car loved the rain and I was sensible to get the car checked over. At least I now know what the car feels and sounds like in horrid oily conditions - basically like no other car I've driven - the "mechanical" sounding noise was scary!

Anyway, as I say a fab weekend of racing despite (or maybe because of?!) the weather. Yet again Julius and the team put together exciting, competitive and friendly races and the award ceremony at the end is one never to be missed with Julius always having kind words and lots of prizes.

Roll on Silverstone at the end of June!!

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by Thundersports

I should have stayed at home and watched that instead of being spoiled by a 6 car Mini grid on the GP loop at Brands!

There were other races with pretty large grids so stop moaning. An this is of topic.

[John Turner]

Two great posts there, Louise! Love these sorts of race accounts; they make these threads a proper record of these meetings.

[kkj]

Good inside report, Louise. A camera in your car would be appropriate so we foreigners will be able to get an even better clue of what is going on in front of your car!

[zefarelly]

Louise, you got fastest lap in class great report, Arthur was glued watching you . . . he didn't give much else a second glance.

I thought the 2CV race was entertaining as well.

Simons Tornado popped a core plug, very dissapointing as it had been running faultlessly, no symptoms of anything, just one of those things. Very frustrating especially given how bloody hard they are to get in!

[SZRacer]

Just wanted to follow up on Louise's report.

Horrible conditions, but a lovely atmosphere, both from organisers and fellow competitors. Actually had time to chat to loads of people, and everybody seemed to be genuinely enjoying being part of the series.

I was a bit sceptical beforehand, but it seems Julius's ethos of 'proper club racing as it used to be' seemed to be in evidence. It was just like when I started historic racing with the HSCC, 17 years ago!

A refreshing lack of artics, liveried lackeys on quad bikes, roped off areas, and 'VIPs only' compounds.

Plus, despite my worries about driving standards (my last experience of one of Julius's races at Mallory five years ago was a bit of a shocker in terms of 'body count'), the driving was excellent, and very respectful, especially so considering that Mallory tends to cause a lot of bunching, and that the conditions were apalling!

As to 'my' race (Grand Touring Greats)?

Well, practice was interesting, with huge amounts of spray, and rain causing visibility and traction problems for most. In my case, being in a 50 year old Italian car means a car that leaks like a sieve (water running down the inside of the windscreen), and a lack of rain gutters means that every time you go round a corner the rain tips into the side window. Guess it was designed for the Targa Florio, not Leicestershire in May.

However, the Giulietta's handling in the wet is by and large sublime. In fact, despite feeling like I was driving ridiculously slowly, I managed to place 11th out of 29 cars, and ahead of (arch rival!) Richard Frankel in his Alfa!

To the race. The rain had eased off a tiny bit, but spray was still an issue. It was also a shock to do a green flag lap, avoiding tow trucks on the circuit, then having to wait what seemed like ages for the start board! Got an OK start, and stayed ahead of Richard for the first 8 or 9 laps. All was well, albeit a tad slippery in the wet, and again I was revelling in the SZ's handling, especially considering my tyres were shagged! However, after about the 5th or 6th lap, I braked for the hairpin, and the car fishtailed! Nealry spinning on the exit to the hairpin, and then fishtailing while trying to put the power down on the exit, I realised something had happened to the track. I thought oil, although on watching the Motors TV coverage, it appears it was coolant.

The net result was that the rest of the race became somewhat interesting at that section! After 9 laps or so, Frankel tried to get past, and I let him, thinking discretion was the better part of valour, and that I could use him as pit canary! The rest of the race was spent trying not to spin going into or out of the hairpin (a few grass excursions from going straight on as I braked for the hairpin) , whilst enjoying overtaking some people (A revelation for me was that I being able to overtake people, and get more traction, on the outside of Gerrards as opposed to the 'dry line' inside!).

Managed to keep my nose clean, and finished in 9th place, 4 seconds behind aforementioned Frankel. Only 4th in class, however, the class win going to Brian A of this parish!

So, well matched cars, great atmosphere, no pretension, and good driving standards. A bit of a revelation for me!

Downsides - Well, I thought the speed of the scrutineering queue was abysmal, although not entirely surprising when from my own experience I got sent away after queuing for 45 mins. and had to come back with tape on BOTH my battery terminals rather than just the one (why do I always get these things with BARC?), and I thought some of the marshalling/organisation etc. was a bit haphazard - eg. the tow trucks on the geen flag lap, plus why were there still no stripey flags 10 laps after people started sliding all over the place at the hairpin?

[Boothen]

Hi guys,

Great racing yesterday! I've uploaded a bit of footage from the Touring Greats race on Youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVhsPvIp8Aoe

Cheers,
Boothen

[Kelvin]

Boothen, I have sent you a message via You Tube account, in the hope that I can link to great video via the HRDC website.

Kindest regards
Kelvin

[thebullet]

I have photos that should be up soon too

[LAK]

Boothen, brilliant video! I love the aged effect - very period.

James, I know what you mean re Italian cars and leakage - many of our's suffer the same fate! However as the Aurelia is often used as an every day car Jason's done a fab job in getting rid of most of the leaks. The little Fiat was actually surprisingly dry although the fogging in both cars in practice was not great.

Joe, I'm sure Arthur was impressed that Motors TV featured the little Fiat in the assembly area - didn't it look great? It was also lovely to see that they filmed both the Abarths together on track - Geoff drove brilliantly in the conditions and absolutely deserved his class win. The cars have a different spec but were amazingly close on fastest lap times. After practice I thought I had the rear engine rear wheel drive thing nailed but clearly after the oily incident I have much still to learn!

I'm with James re his concluding comments - the pre-gridding for the Touring Greats race was absent (there was also no green flag at the bacK) but fine for the GT race and the delay in starting the GT race was not terrific for older cars. In practice I got lots of blue flags even though I was doing the overtaking (!) and like James I didn't see any stripey flags for the oil/coolent incident. However I know that the organisers had to keep to a TV schedule and of course flagging in those terrible conditions is very difficult. We should be indebted to the marshals for being there at all and I hope I showed my due appreciation on the warm down laps.

I really can't express how much joy both races bought to Jason and myself. We utterly adore the Aurelia and are so proud to be it's custodian and my little Fiat was an unexpected present to myself that so far (2 races down) has proved to be as much fun (in fact a total scream) as I'd hoped it would be.

[Kelvin]

http://www.tsl-timing.com/barc/2011/112221.pdf

is it just me, or are the results/times for HRDC incomplete?

[Nick JM]

to all of you who were racing at Mallory well done! I had no idea there were so many 10thers out there!

I was watching from the comfort of a Discovery complete with 6 children at various points around Garrards and the kink just before the straight leading to the hairpin (can't remember what it is called). Fantatasic racing in poor conditions.

The 2CV race which I thought wouild be boring was in fact very good. Mallory obviously suits them - unlike Silverstone which was the last time I saw them and they looked rather forlorn to be honest.

What happened to the driver of the Impreza in the 4th race? He simply appeared not to slow down at all and careered into the barrier at one hell of a lick - hope he was OK.

PS Grant GP is correct about the car alarms!

[Brian A]

Originally Posted by LAK

James, I know what you mean re Italian cars and leakage - many of our's suffer the same fate! However as the Aurelia is often used as an every day car Jason's done a fab job in getting rid of most of the leaks. The little Fiat was actually surprisingly dry although the fogging in both cars in practice was not great.

It's not just Italian cars with the water pouring in, I was getting well wet.

Following the Colin Chapman school of added lightness, all of the door sealing rubber is removed as it weights a few grams..... Maybe a false economy?

I was really enjoying myself until the oil/coolant went down presenting quite a surprise when first encountering it on the run up to the hairpin. Could cope with it after then by keeping to the right and hugging the inside line, but getting the power down again on the run to Devil's elbow was the problem and of course key to the speed down the start/finish straight.

Pleased with the class win, but should have done better overall as I was up to 2nd until I got mugged by Shaun Rainford and Mike Haigh whilst lapping a back marker.

Main thing in the conditions, was finishing in one piece, just a quick wash now and off to Spa Francorchamps.

That and fixing the starter motor

[LAK]

Hi Brian. You drove brilliantly! And your car got very deserved wonderful comments on the telly. I don't believe I was the cause of your mugging by said cars but I do recall that you were close by when Geoff and I were having a battle so apologies if I/we got in your way at all and prevented you from closing in on said muggers.

I agree with you re the lack of traction at the start of the straight and of course only having an ickle engine this killed my lap time however to be fair Geoff seemed to cope very well.

See you at Spa! We'll be racing the modern Fiat Coupe with CSCC which is entirely different kettle of fish to the Aurelia and Abarth. Hopefully we'll have time to enjoy a beer or two with you.

[Brian A]

No it wasn't you Louise - Shaun and Mike were through before I caught up with your particular battle which looked good fun.

[Boothen]

There's some photos from the Touring Greats race and a 2CV clip here;

http://www.nogripracing.com/gallery/...ry.php?cat=512

http://www.nogripracing.com/videos/view.php?id=3295

Regards,
Boothen

[John Turner]

I'd just like to say (again) that there are some wonderful posts on here, particularly from the race participants, and this thread is an excellent example of recording a level of detail of an event which would otherwise be merely a footnote in the history of our very crowded racing calendar. So thank you, to all!

[zefarelly]

couldn't agree more.