Multiplying Modsports and teenage kicks: On the road — June 2022

Simon Arron’s tour of Britain’s national racing highlights continues. Classic saloon racing dominated the start of June before Brands Hatch draped itself in the Stars and Stripes and fired up the V8s for its annual celebration of Americana.

His June diary begins with a visit to Brands Hatch.

Classic Sports Car Club

Brands Hatch June 3

The Jubilee ‘weekend’ had commenced in a lively manner, surrounded by people of every shape, size, age and degree of intoxication as Squeeze stole the show at a festival in Brockwell Park, south London. I purchased my first Squeeze record in 1978, so science is powerless to explain why it took me 44 years to see them live.

I am rather less of a stranger to Brands Hatch, but the frequency of its presence in this column has nothing to do with location but simply reflects a couple of things. One, it hosts a high number of hugely appealing events – and the British Grand Prix’s absence since 1986 doesn’t alter that truth. Two, who wouldn’t want to watch Special Saloons and Modsports in action on a Friday?

With regard to the second point, it seems I might be in the minority. The contrast with the festival’s hustle and bustle on the previous day could hardly have been greater, with the spectator banks sparsely populated and a smaller entry than usual for a CSCC meeting. To put that in context, it simply meant most of the grids were busy rather than overflowing.

Pick of the bunch was probably the Gold Arts Magnificent Sevens race, in which Christian Pittard clawed back a 10sec success penalty at his mandatory pitstop to beat fellow Caterham CSR driver Ben Simonds by three tenths after 40 minutes of racing, the latter not helped when his engine began cutting out during the final stages.

The photogenic highlight, predictably, was provided by the 20-strong Special Saloons/Modsports field, featuring everything from the wild wings of Danny Morris’s Peugeot 309 to the less radically sculptured Citroën BX of Gary Cole via assorted Ford Anglias and Escorts.

Morris won Friday’s race, followed home by Tony Davies’s Transpeed Vauxhall Firenza – a car he first raced in April 1978, just a couple of weeks after I’d bought Take Me I’m Yours, that aforementioned Squeeze record…

Historic Sports Car Club Wolds Trophy

Cadwell Park June 4

Had the North Sea wind bothered to post an entry, there’s a fair chance it would have been quite competitive – it was certainly brisker than some of the cars present. T-shirt and shorts had been logical apparel at Brands Hatch, but 24 hours and 167 miles later there was a case to be made for thermals.

The Wolds Trophy is a lovely event – it could hardly be anything else, given the location – but in reality it’s just an HSCC clubbie with more trees, rabbits and butterflies than most. It could certainly have done with a few extra competitors.

The Historic FF2000 field was an honourable exception – and generated a wonderful lead tussle between Graham Fennymore (Reynard SF81) and Benn Simms (SF77), who crossed the line 0.03sec apart.

A few years ago there were enough Historic FF1600 cars to fill two separate grids, but here there were only 18. First trialled at Cadwell in September 2020, a series for 1980s Production Sports & GTs has struggled to find its feet and this time attracted just two cars, which were amalgamated with the somewhat healthier 1970s Road Sports. And where on earth are all the Historic Touring Cars that were once so numerous? There were nine of those, the grid bolstered by three cars contesting the club’s latest initiative – a series for Historic Special Saloons and Modsports.

The idea is the brainchild of Turner driver Steve Watton. “This isn’t an attempt to hijack what the CSCC is doing,” he said. “They have a fantastic series with some great cars, but most of them are very much to 2022 specification. There are people who don’t want to race in that series because their cars are closer to the way they were in period so wouldn’t be competitive – and those are the ones we hope to attract. I know there are quite a few more in preparation.”

Bodyshells must be of the same material cars wore when they rolled off the assembly line and spaceframes are banned. This is a playground for steel-clothed Escorts, not Formula 5000 cars masquerading as Škodas.

American SpeedFest 9

Brands Hatch June 11

Packed lunch? Check. Coffee Thermos? Check. Folding bicycle? Check. Cameras? Obviously… I pointed my Peugeot’s snout towards Thruxton without a second thought, but had progressed only as far as Croydon when the sound of Supertramp faded from the speaker system to be replaced by the sound of an incoming call and my son’s voice.

“Dad, you’ve left your jacket here and taken mine –my keys are in the pocket and I need it approximately now.”

Plan A was thus swiftly abandoned in favour of a reversed Thruxton-Brands Hatch strategy, but either way around it was going to be no hardship.

Since its inception in 2013, I’ve attended every Speedfest bar one (in 2016, when it clashed with what turned out to be the final Cholmondeley Castle sprint and an appetising motorcycle clubbie nearby at Oulton Park). To my mind it is one of the most engaging events introduced to the UK calendar in recent times, with so much going on that a family could have a very enjoyable day out (monster truck rides, drift demonstrations. American car displays and so on) without actually watching any racing, though one doubts any adopt that approach.

There was a time when Brands Hatch hosted stock car races on its long disused Clearways oval – and one or two EuroNASCAR drivers adopted tactics that would have been suitable for such occasions. Contact, though, is perhaps inevitable when you have a field of 30-plus cars that are physically imposing and have somewhat more power (450bhp) than grip. And they sound even better than they look… Serial winner Alon Day’s performance in the opening race was a masterclass in canny racecraft – and the crowd showed suitable appreciation.

The supporting categories were excellent, too, ripe with close competition (Legends, Pickups, Intermarque Silhouettes) and diversity (Bernie’s V8s).

In essence, the only thing wrong with American SpeedFest is that you have to wait 12 months for the next one to come along…

British Automobile Racing Club

Thruxton Historic June 12

Having managed, in a rare moment of clarity, to leave home with only my own clothes, I was this time able to progress beyond Croydon and thence most of the way to Stonehenge.

One of the reasons for originally having preferred the idea of Saturday at Thruxton had been a stronger-looking racecard – and it seems instinct was correct.

One has to feel for the BARC. It has been working very hard to establish its historic meeting and attracted a superb field for its Jochen Rindt Trophy, an old-style Formula Libre race that drew a big and varied collection of F2, F3, Formula Atlantic and FF2000 cars. The HRDC provided some strong, diverse fields, too, as is its custom. But…

MRL’s combined Pre ’63 GT and Jaguar Challenge attracted only six cars – one of which was sidelined during practice by a blown diff – and its similarly merged Sixties Touring Car Challenge/U2TC race just eight. Both races ran for an hour; as the quickest E-types were but a couple of seconds quicker than the briskest Lotus Cortinas, surely it would have been sensible to combine them – much better for spectators and an opportunity for marshals to knock off an hour earlier. The only saving grace was the presence of Richard Dutton’s Mk1 Ford Escort, built relatively recently – and very nicely – to pre-1970 Group 2 regulations. “Everybody seems to love it,” he said.

Not hard to see why, it’s just a shame there weren’t a few more of similar ilk.

I’d been told I’d missed a real treat the previous day, a sublime Jochen Rindt Trophy lead battle between Benn Tilley (in Simon Hadfield’s Atlantic Modus M1) and Rob Wainwright (ex-Niki Lauda 722). Tilley won that by less than a second after Wainwright recovered from a quick spin – and they were almost inseparable second time around, at least until Tilley lost a pin from his front suspension and resorted to some nifty cadence braking in a successful quest to keep the car out of the barriers.

The contest between the Frogeyes of Pippa Cow and Tom Walker in the MG Car Club’s Midget & Sprite Challenge was similarly engaging. Cow had won Saturday’s race by a fraction – and drew a huge cheer from the grandstand when she swept around the outside to lead again on Sunday. Walker subsequently regained the upper hand, but the outcome remained in the balance until his rival’s gearbox packed up.

While they lasted, both had been perfect illustrations of how our sport should be.

Pre ’98 2.0-litre bangers

Standlake Arena June 26

This section of the column was supposed to contain sweeping views across northern England, to coincide with the second running of the Yorkshire Motor Sport Festival, but for some reason getting out of bed at 3am was more challenging than usual – partly because my legs seemed less willing than the rest of me, but also because I was feeling a bit under the weather.

The solution was to have a restful Saturday and find an alternative attraction later in the weekend – and pre ’98 bangers (Mondeos and Focuses both banned, presumably due to greater structural rigidity) sounded just the ticket. As it transpired there weren’t many of them – during their briefing, drivers were implored to save major wrecking until the end of the meeting – but that didn’t dilute their capacity to entertain.

For the first time, at the recommendation of sat-nav app Waze (which is very good at spotting traffic jams and road closures), I approached the venue via the village of Standlake, whose elegant cottages provide a striking contrast to the more basic, rough-and-tumble charms of the racetrack a mile along the A415.

So quiet was the paddock that the sound of angle grinders was secondary to that of nearby shotguns – presumably the culling of rabbits, rather than Nissan Micras – but loudest of all were assorted parents, cussing and blinding during a race for a category known as Teen Streets, basically banger racing for kids.

Participants were warned beforehand about track etiquette, in the wake of an incident the previous evening at Ringwood, yet in one race some drivers were hard at it before the green flag had flown and while marshals were still clambering over the barriers to reach their posts.

Not a good look, that.