This years opening event of Motor Racing Legend’s (MRL) season, the Donington Historic Festival was, as usual, full of great grids of historic cars battling it out on the beautiful Donington Park circuit.
Outside of the huge International events such as those at Goodwood and Le Mans the competitors and spectators at classic car meetings do tend to represent a more ”mature” section of the population. Many of us “male, pale and stale” do worry about what this means for the continued success of the pastime that we feel so passionate about. The sheer cost of running and racing beautiful old cars also means it tends to be the preserve of the relatively wealthy.
It was therefore refreshing to hear last year of the launch by MRL of the “Generations Trophy” that is open to be competed by drivers of two generations of the same family in near identical pre 1966 MGB Roadsters that “have been tested by the organisers to ensure that no car has a significant advantage over its peers”. I must admit that at the time I was rather worried that the grids for such a format may be a bit thin. It was therefore a real joy to see 36 cars on the grid, thus representing one of the largest line ups of the weekend.
The Bentley Drivers Club has a long and honourable tradition of intergenerational racing with father and son, Duncan and James Wiltshire sharing Duncan’s car and Clive and Stuart Morley racing against each other
It was good to see on first arriving at the track that the usual clutch of colourful BMW had arrived to do battle in the Historic Touring Car Challenge
Their antics on track did not disappoint
Nor did those of the more recent GT3 Legends
At the other extreme of speed and cost it was fascinating to have my first exposure to Cyclekarts. With 200cc and around 6.5bhp what they lacked in grunt was more than made up by the originality and enthusiasm shown by their owners and builders.
It was particularly poignant to see an evocation of the Auto Unions that would have famously won here in 1937, aided by 16 times as many cylinders, 30 times the engine capacity and, with the aid of a supercharger, almost 100 times the horsepower.
Back in the full sized world older Grand Prix cars were racing fiercely
While their more modern counterparts were doing demonstration runs
Thankfully there were no major incidents, though the occasional episode of gravel rash did occur
The next MRL event will be at Brands Hatch in late June which I hope to attend.
