Silverstone Classic

[Peter Mallett]

Mike,

Good to meet you and James and Suzanne. She has an interesting tale to tell of how she came to race cars.

Anyway just to show that they were trying, here's one of the pics I took during the Group C race on Saturday evening.

[midgetman]

Just got home, having a midnight feast before bed, no it wasn
T difficult to get out but i had to travel long way round to return the borrowed MGDavid camper. Thanks MGD!

>>>>>>>On Sunday all the races in the morning ran from the old pits AM and the new pits PM. This meant there was a ghost town in the pits adjacent to the public commercial areas which can't have been good

No, it was bl**dy terrible. Plus: Putting the best cars on the bottom paddock meant we didn't see the very drivers who over the last two years have become our customers. Spreading the trade stands out over a bigger area simply confused the customers who couldn't find me, despite knowing I was there. They couldn't even find the tented village! The whole commercial side was a total disaster, even the tents were substandard.

Still, I really, really enjoyed the Group C racing and the sight of Bob Berridge very much still "on it" in the wet qually took me right back to the day.

Downside of the racing? The lap is so bleeding long that we get bored watching the slower cars with long gaps of empty track. Gawd knows how few times we would have seen pre war cars come past us, thank goodness there wasn't one, I heard it was very boring at MGLive waiting for them to come round.

Speaking of pre war, still haven't met John Ruston, I don't believe he exists or is he The Twig? Nice to meet John Turner at last, and also good to see John Smith looking fit, and Robyn was lurking with us at the Delta BBQ.

This is the third we've exhibited at, and by far the worst. It showed every sign that pennies were being pinched left, right and centre, and the logistics were a nightmare for everyone. Heard a lovely story about the Jobsworth who wouldn't allow a Routemaster clippie to jump the queue for the ladies by using the disabled loos. After several minutes of "but I'm staff", she pointed to the line of cars stuck behind her bus and said that if she had to wait another ten minutes he could explain personally to each driver why they were held up! Collapse of jobsworth's argument!

Still the cars were great, met some really nice people and the sun shone really hard today, there are worse days at work

[brands]

Too tired to post my thoughts about the Classic now but here is one of my highlights from the event

[FISCracer]

Originally Posted by Tim Falce

This afternoon's E-type race looked quite expensive with a couple of cars off at Becketts and Chapel, both seriously damaged. We commented that one looked a bit short for an E-type and the guy behind us on the bus said yes, about £50K shorter, just hope the drivers were OK

When I went to the HSCC trackday for the E type Challenge at Goodwood back in February or March it was pretty clear that there was likely to be trouble with the combination of quick drivers in quick cars and shall we say less fast and/or less experienced drivers. I and several others thought the risks too great and it seems we were right. At least everyone is in one piece.

I was going to say it looks as if I did not miss much today but seeing a brawl in the pit lane would have been £50 well spent. Karting comes to the Masters! I look forward to the procedings in my next MSA mag

[delta]

Mixed weekend for us with race results,we have had a brilliant year apart from a couple of shunts and the F3 car with fuel tank problems .Saturday morning first FJ race and Volpini is a clear 5 sec's quicker than the next Fiat FJ so we are all very confident of a class win BUT!!!!!!!!!. The cars leave for warm up lap and I get a phone call from Grant P who is out taking photo's on the Hanger straight to say that the car has pulled off. Turned out to be fuel pressure regulator.Then at the end of the day Colin had a shunt in his E Type I guess he will tell us about that later.Rest of the weekend was fine,we quickly sussed out the loop holes with problems for us as we had cars to prepare in both paddocks, a lot of freinds who came to spectate were moaning about lack of transport to and from old and new paddocks. I suppose we felt a bit like the poor relation as we were parked in the old paddock.My pit crew had no idea when the race,s started or finnished so next year a tv screen that could be seen from pit wall would be very helpfull.Apart from that brilliant meeting well done all involved.

[simon drabble]

Midgetman - you should have been at Castle Combe - packed with speccys and drivers as Britcar came to town... sorry to hear about the woes of various posters and intrigued by the WSM debacle.. I always thought WSM driving standards were a bit iffy but pitlane brawls is superb!!!

[midgetman]

Haha that's true Simon, would have been easier logistics and I get to sleep in my own bed at night! Plus it's quicker for me to drive the 14 miles to Combe than it took to take the shuttles from Woodlands

Im sure that the organisers will receive constructive feedback from competitors, spectators and traders alike. I hope they act on it because I'm a great fan of the event, it's just that this year didn't work. The mix of cars was great IMO, but I can't help thinking that now it has been ruined by the alterations to the GP circuit. Be nice to move it elsewhere, but would the drivers who make it such a success be so keen on Donington or Brands.

Seeing 50s cars on the Wellington Straight just didn't work to my eyes.

[Peter Mallett]

I think the major problem is the split paddocks. People couldn't walk between them. The busses couldn't cope so it must have felt like two separate events. And when they finally got down there, the international pits had little in the way of concessions etc.

[brands]

From this spectators point of view the plus points were the quality of cars, the racing, the easy access to the infield without many issues from security (I was with a friend from a car club), the Woodlands campsite which is very good, seeing Wishbone Ash again

The minus points were having split paddocks which just didn't work, the way the cars were rammed into the new garages (how did the crews manage to work on the cars when it was difficult to even walk between them), the farce that was the entry lists in the programme ( the lead commentator spent every moment between races plus the first lap of the races going through dozens of amendments ), the pleas from said commentator about lack of driver information in every 2 driver race, the general lack of information for first time visitors ( I spent lots of time as an unofficial guide), the joke of the "celebrity" "race" (if you want to raise £25K for charity then put 50p on each ticket and give the marshals an extra hours break), the Paddock Bite breakfasts which were unusually poor.



Having said that my experience of the 2011 meeting was overall better than the previous couple of years.

[Peter Mallett]

Not really relevant but I was a bit sad looking at the deserted stands on the "National" straight.

[Derwent Motorsp]

I think I am glad I did not go this year. The entry fees for races were OTT and the admission fees were high and by the sound of it the traffic was bad!
Now I am very much a midfield racer in Equipe GTS with my MG B and my best time last month was 2.45. Now flicking through the whole set of the race results looking at qualifying times, there are lots of faster cars that were slower than that, including several of the "big" saloon cars and some single seaters. Am I right in thinking that we are getting increasing number of wealthy enthusiasts with no previous motorsport experience taking part?

[Derwent Motorsp]

I see Silverstone want to built a kart track on the inside of Copse. This will mean even less display space and parking for "festival" type events. MG Live! was quite tight on space this year so it would be worse for future Classics.

[terence]

Originally Posted by Derwent Motorsp

I think I am glad I did not go this year. The entry fees for races were OTT and the admission fees were high and by the sound of it the traffic was bad!
Now I am very much a midfield racer in Equipe GTS with my MG B and my best time last month was 2.45. Now flicking through the whole set of the race results looking at qualifying times, there are lots of faster cars that were slower than that, including several of the "big" saloon cars and some single seaters. Am I right in thinking that we are getting increasing number of wealthy enthusiasts with no previous motorsport experience taking part?

Thought that to have been the case for several years now?

[simon drabble]

Derwnt Motorsp I think your comment on wealthy enthusiasts with no racing experience is a bit of a red herring. Judy Lyons is not the most rapid but has many races under her belt. Conversely I know of a schoolboy who did 2.39 in his dad's Turner in the Gent Drivers race.
The only relevant factor is whether the driving standards were exceptable and it seems that the only time these were questioned an element of self regulation was adopted!!
For what its worth I had dinner last night with the Turner team and was left wishing I had a car eligible for pre 63GT, the Italian Cup or Gentlemen Drivers.... father and son had a great weekend even though they had a DNF

[pomracer]

Originally Posted by terence bower

Thought that to have been the case for several years now?

One of the best sights of the weekend was a lovely Grp 4 Ferrari Daytona in period livery ...with a novice cross on the back.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Not really relevant but I was a bit sad looking at the deserted stands on the "National" straight.

I didn't get down to the Wing end at all except for last thing on Sunday when the teams were jostling for space to get their vehicles in and kit loaded to head home. I didn't stay but it looked like it might turn into interesting spectacle.

As well as the sparsely populated National Straight grandstands the others I saw were not expecially busy except for the smallish one near the funfair at the start of the Wellington straight. Which is actually not a bad general viewing location.

Now in some ways one could see this as a good thing since people with bums on seats are not frequenting the side shows and trade stands - of which there were so many I didn't make any attempt to visit them in my yomps between photographic locations. I would probably have totally distracted for days at time.

The Wing certainly looks impressive and had 'presence' but seems to be an odd place in some ways as it tries to mix a business front with a pits complex.

With many of the Grandstands being closed the photographic backdrops naturally have a tendency to look a bit bleak. Mind you that is hardly unique to Silverstone and especially for what is very much an enthusiast based event. It will be interesting to see the attendance figures when they are available.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Derwent Motorsp

I think I am glad I did not go this year. The entry fees for races were OTT and the admission fees were high and by the sound of it the traffic was bad!
Now I am very much a midfield racer in Equipe GTS with my MG B and my best time last month was 2.45. Now flicking through the whole set of the race results looking at qualifying times, there are lots of faster cars that were slower than that, including several of the "big" saloon cars and some single seaters. Am I right in thinking that we are getting increasing number of wealthy enthusiasts with no previous motorsport experience taking part?

On the other hands there were a couple of cars out (notably in the single seaters) with novice crosses, that seemed to be going extremely well.

It's sometimes difficult to guage who is having an especially good day and who a bad day for either personal or mechanical reasons. One thing that struck me more obviously at Slverstone than it has elswhere - notably at Copse for example - was just how near the limit people most were driving.

Unless there were evident problem with the car I can't recall seeing many who were not drifting through Copse more often than not. The only notable exception being, as one commentator observed, the 'mobile chicane'. Thankfully Silverstone is wide enough that it could keep out of the way.

Lap time discrepancies can be huge for apparently similar cars but even small differences in specification, preparation and driver ability can make a seemingly huge gap in laptime and race performance and the Arena circuit seems to magnify that for some reason.

[nordet]

Saturday - Gentleman Drivers
Turner MKII, approaching the finish line, the marshalls were flagging him and the car ended up facing the wrong way. That's one way to acknowledge the marshalls.

[pomracer]

I was there on saturday - I was told that someone (forgotten who) with two cars there, had his first race from 'old' pits and the other from the 'new'. During second race he decided to pit and out of habit pitted in the 'old' pits by mistake and the marshalls would not let him out. end of race!

[p261brm]

I suppose this could almost be a new thread, your view of the ''Classic 2011''.
A good weekend no great drama's, the weather played it's part of course, and there was some excellent racing...
Dear BRDC, sorry your much vaunted 27 zeros state of the art new pit complex for the classic type of event is rubbish. The toilet, hand washing facilities in the garage's must contravene every health/safety/EC rules in the book. for that number of people working there. How the lads workrd in those over crowded conditions I do not know, if a fire or accident occured you could not get to it with any sort of expediency whatsoever.
Who thought of locking all the access gates, and blocking the paddock area up as an assembly area? The ''trade stands'' were all marked out, then health & safety stepped in and one of the access routes to the ''wing'' was closed off, and then the lads with Quads and trailer's full of the necessary had to play dodgems with the fare paying GBP and routemasters down the runway where one used to purchase your genuine Hawthorn signed print, and that hard to obtain rusty bit. Then there was the friendly and polite way your miss-understanding of a ''situation'' was explained by the ''Authority'.'
And finally, 50 plus of varying power and abilitiy set off on a rolling start to the first corner, for some....

[apriliadriver]

Peter Mallett;2930784]Not really relevant but I was a bit sad looking at the deserted stands on the "National" straight.

"I think it is extremely relevant : why was the BRDC tin-shack stand locked up , (I don't mean the Abo Dhobi superstand next door) ? It has the best overall view of Luffield. And why was the new Wellington Stand, (overlooking the braking area into Luffield) ticket-only ? The result was only 6 people sitting in it on Saturday. If they had charged a £5 or a £10, me and several mates would have happily paid to get in.

Why not make the BRDC stand for competitor/engineer wristband entry only if you have to restrict it. Is that not what the BRDC is about ?

In fact, as a competitor, was there any stand to sit in without having a ticket ? I had not bought stand tickets because I foolishly thought that there might be some provision somewhere for team members. A daft assumption to make, I know.

Peter is right, the National Startline straight stands were empty, presumably barred off as well.

Why were so many of the access gates padlocked ? It meant a roundabout trip to do a 10m walk in the National paddock.

I think Graham White and the HSCC did a fantastic job organising a two-base race meeting. I think the Event Organisers need to do a serious listening job to spectators and team views after this. The Trade Stands which as someone a few posts further on said were once well-placed aside the runway near Becketts, were split for no good reason. The exit/entry arrangements were not well-managed.

The split paddocks were inconvenient (HP Tyres could only be in one place at a time and theirs was the International paddock ) - result was that when I changed tyres I had to drive the race car down from Old to New Paddock with tools. Not a big thing, but just b***** inconvenient.

I raced the Alfa GTA in Under Two-Litre Touring cars : an interesting Practise learning the newly-laid part of the circuit and complicated by a couple of engines grenading oil all over the new piece of track after 3 laps of Practise.

The Race on Saturday was fun, and an absolute melee in the first two laps as the green flag lap arrangement changed and few knew when we were green-flagging and when we were racing : I must have been asleep during the Briefing. Me and co-driver brought the car back in one piece and on Saturday afternoon I loaded the Alfa with my tools + kit and drove home. Everyone should drive to and from a race-meeting in their competition car occasionally to remember how racing used to be (not recommended for Gp C cars, though).
Nick

[Chigley]

What did you guys in the National pits feel about the half circuit pace lap? We tried to judge it so when the last car left the pit lane we still had enough track left to accelerate up to a decent speed so you could get the brakes and tyres warmed up before you started the first racing lap. From the International pits I think it was a lot more satisfactory.
Ian

[pomracer]

Interesting feedback in many posts on this thread re the new wing, most of which I agree with.

Was it just me, or does the design also make it an especially noisy place to be??It almost seemed to amplify everything whether you were inside ,or just standing by door/s

Curious also that no internal partitions - fire risk.

Originally Posted by p261brm

I suppose this could almost be a new thread, your view of the ''Classic 2011''.
A good weekend no great drama's, the weather played it's part of course, and there was some excellent racing...
Dear BRDC, sorry your much vaunted 27 zeros state of the art new pit complex for the classic type of event is rubbish. The toilet, hand washing facilities in the garage's must contravene every health/safety/EC rules in the book. for that number of people working there. How the lads workrd in those over crowded conditions I do not know, if a fire or accident occured you could not get to it with any sort of expediency whatsoever.
Who thought of locking all the access gates, and blocking the paddock area up as an assembly area? The ''trade stands'' were all marked out, then health & safety stepped in and one of the access routes to the ''wing'' was closed off, and then the lads with Quads and trailer's full of the necessary had to play dodgems with the fare paying GBP and routemasters down the runway where one used to purchase your genuine Hawthorn signed print, and that hard to obtain rusty bit. Then there was the friendly and polite way your miss-understanding of a ''situation'' was explained by the ''Authority'.'
And finally, 50 plus of varying power and abilitiy set off on a rolling start to the first corner, for some....

[percy]

Just a few pics from the weekend. More can be found here https://picasaweb.google.com/1045575...23/Classic11LR and I'll be adding to the gallery as and when I get around to it. In the meantime, please DM (or PM? whichever it is) to ask if I managed to get a pic of your car. Most of my pics are from the Formula Junior, U2L TC, WSM, Gentleman Drivers, GPM, Group C races.
Thanks again to all the drivers and teams for putting on a great weekend of racing.



The old and the new (old car, not Rudolf!)




Reflecting on the new pit complex

[percy]

Double-post. Sorry.