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Old 14 Mar 2006, 17:55 (Ref:1548193)   #9
chunterer
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Bigears, the whole weekend was absolute heaven for me!

I went with the old man and or mates every year because we lived half an hour away. Plus, F3000 was my main interest in the sport. The noise reverberated back off the tall buildings, it was amazing. I used to wander around the closed streets insude the circuit looking for a new vantage point. You could nip down side roads and find a forecourt of a business premises behind the catchfencing but with plenty of room to view the cars.

It was also weird seeing future stars standing around the service area od Bristol Street Motors, quite surreal!!

1986, the inaugual year was indeed terribly wet and we all felt sorry for the orgainsers because of having finally got it all arranged and up and running, the weather threatened to kill it off!

1987 was a good event, a 'demonstration drive' by Stefano Modena who looked every bit a future WDC at that point, shame he didn't cut the mustard in F1. Race also memorable for Roberto Moreno's drive to 2nd from the back and also a good battle between Andy Wallace and one or two others.

In 1988 loads of silly stoppages caused by idiot drivers theatened things a bit leading to cancellation of BTCC race which was a shame as it was a big crowd puller at the event.
Moreno did the business though romping away with Martini and Donnelly also impressing.

1989 main race was a great scrap (as mentioned in Marco Apicella thread) between him and Jean Alesi.

I had a photo blown up to poster size on my wall for years of Eric Bernard's Lola coming out of the Bristol Street pit lane - even with a relatively modest 135ml lens you could zoom in on the drivers crash hat. Trouble was that you'd go deaf momentarily as the guys would invariably blip the throttle to put some rubber down as they exited the pit lane!! The late Stephane Proulx was one particular ear offender!!!

1990m the final year was for me the best race for action. Eric Van De Poele won but Apicella was long gone until he broke down. Drive of the race was from Fabrizio Barbazza in the Crypton Leyton House. He qualified about 3 rows from the back in a really awkward car but flew through the field on a mission until he came upon one Eddie Irvine who decided to edge over on him under braking a the end of the return leg of Belgrave Middleway causing Barbazza to vault him and very nearly ended up down in the underpass! Ruined the race really as god knows where he'd have finished, easily second i'd imagine as Frentzen binned it bit later pushing too hard.

I was devastated when the event stopped, as it was touch and go for a while if it would continue into 1991.

Councillors said it was a huge money loss but I remember a massive crowd for that final year so it must have been a pretty good tourist attraction.

Hope that gives you a taster of what it was like for a local F3000 mad teenager!

Last edited by chunterer; 2 Nov 2007 at 09:30.
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