Mallory Testing - May 19th

[The Fat Clerk]

The Historic trend continued today, the first car that caught my eye was Colin Blowers bright yellow DB, he was joined in the sports/saloon sessions by a Mclaren M6, Lola T70, Lola T70 spyder, C, D & E Type Jaguars, MGA & B, Sunbeam Tiger, 3 Metro's, 2 Caterhams, a Golf GTI, a Fiesta, Maestro, Citroen AX, Saxon, Sports 1000, a Capri, 3 Kit Cars and a Mazda RX3 Rotary.
The only car to bring out the red flags was a modern 3 series BMW which had a radiator hose blow which emptied the contents of its cooling system onto the track, luckily the warm temperature soon dried it up.

The single seaters were headed by a valuable collection of F1 cars pedalled by Rob Hall: 2 Tyrells, a Wolf and a Brabham + a gorgous looking Gitanes liveried Matra Simca, they were joined by a Beta March, a Toleman F2 and a Ferrari PB. Slower but no less interesting were 2 F.Juniors (carrots), a Brabham 500cc and the usual selection of F.Ford 16/18/2000 headed by Stuart Kestenbaum fresh from his weekend win @ Cadwell.

After the lunch break, the warm weather brought out over 60 solo bikes and 4sidecars who had a completely troublefree afternoon, the only fatality being an Oyster Catcher who tried head butting a sidecar on the start straight.

[dusty]

its strange to think that the only thing at mallory that was built this century was the oyster catcher! I suspect that like most people of dave`s advancing years anything remotely modern is deemed "suspect"! Its a pity nothing new appears at mallory these days, motorsport in general seems to have lurched from being the latest technology to a historic anachronism very quickly! never mind, while all us old folks are watching 40 year old cars the young generation will be laughing and playing on their x boxes and buying new golfs,fiestas and other hot hatches and ford etc will be putting their sponsorship into other forms of advertising!

[The Fat Clerk]

Probably right about my advancing age, I've been involved for the past 37 years and like most people have rose coloured spectacles about the past. The one modern machine that's been tested @ the circuit this season that did catch my eye is the GT4 Aston Martin N24, but believe me watching Simon Hadfield and Rob Hall racing round in 30 year old F1 cars, doing 42 second laps is much more interesting than watching modern Clios and the like struggling to break a minute.

[Hepatic]

watching AND hearing no doubt

[dusty]

ah well! I still dislike old cars as a rule ( old cars had character, new ones start first time in the morning!). I always liked mallory testing when the new f3s were being tested at the begining of the season. who can forget the lovely jaguar f3 tripping over a formula v and ending up with three wheels on his wagon! I just think that its a pity that when most of us started watching racing, the cars that raced on sunday where sold in showrooms on monday. Like everything though, I suppose all nostalgia is a thing of the past! I just cannot help wondering where the next generation of marshalls, racers and spectators will get the desire to get involved in motorsport.