Grand Passione Classic, Donington, 19/20 April

[rogerwills]

Strange, I'm sure someone said it has FIA papers!

[simon drabble]

HTP not the gold ones ;o)

[terence]

Originally Posted by johngee

I'll let you into a little secret Terry - it's not a real one!

No,your kidding me .

[terence]

Originally Posted by rogerwills

Strange, I'm sure someone said it has FIA papers!

I did see Marcus having a look at it.

[john ruston]

Is Marcus still doing papers?Thought he has been replaced.

[terence]

The last I heard he was "working" from home.

[john ruston]

Yesterdays Man but still with the Autosport bit

[John Turner]

A big grid of Lolas and Chevrons. A wonderful sight. I gently teased Chris Beighton about being 'only' 6th on the grid in the Team Tiger T70MkIIIB (81) coupe he said it would 'be fine' and it was. The front row consisted of the similar cars of poleman, Nick Linney (67) and David Clark (6), and it was the latter that took the early lead. Here, into the Old Hairpin for the first time is Clark and Linney, with the '81' car already up to 3rd, followed by the Lola 212 (212!) of Anthony Hancock, Jon Minshaw (33) and Mike Wrigley (11) in a Chevron B16. Hancock dropped back to 5th briefly but then worked his way to the front to beat all the big bangers by nearly 10 seconds. Meanwhile the 81 car had taken 2nd and held off strong challenges from Linney (3rd) and Minshaw (4th). Owing to the pace of the 81 car, the commentator, I, and I'm sure a lot of others, had assumed that it was Beighton driving but who should get out of it at the end but Jon Finnimore, so well done JF, we underestimated you (not for the first time, by me, I'm afraid). Clark was 6th and Wrigley 7th, as Richard Meins had brought his T70MkIIIB into contention
to take 5th:-


Anthony Hancock on his way to a fine victory:-


Sorry, Roger, but this was the best shot I got of the Elva Mk7, the oldest car in the race. Mr Wills finished 20th in exalted company - 29 finishers of 30 starters:-


Another 'bootiful' car; stunning in fact, Jamie Boot's Chevron B16 finished 17th:-


I'm assuming that this is Jason Minshaw in the family B8. It finished 16th:-


One of my favourite liveries although David Betts Porsche 911RSR looked at little out of place and breath in this company. He finished 26th:-


Of course, although I wasn't there the following day, Jon Finniemore's fine 2nd left me with great expectations of a win for Chris Beighton in the second race for these cars, and he duly delivered having overtaken the Hancock Lola before the latter started to fail. Interestingly, although Chris won by 7.3 seconds, several cars posted faster laps. Lap times were well down on Saturday's times and we know from accounts that conditions were very slippery on Sunday. However, since most of the quickest times were posted toward the end of the race, it was either beginning to dry or the drivers were getting to grips with conditions. By that time, Beighton had already established control over the race and didn't need to push as hard as his pursuers. One intriguing question is how Simon Hadfield would have fared on his home track since he was down to start the Clark Lola on Sunday but it did not appear on the grid.

[rogerwills]

Originally Posted by John Turner

Sorry, Roger, but this was the best shot I got of the Elva Mk7, the oldest car in the race. Mr Wills finished 20th in exalted company - 29 finishers of 30 starters:

Not only the oldest, the lowest power output as well I'm sure!!!

[John Turner]

A hard fought race in which Marco Pullen (13) and Gary Culver (34) struggled for the lead throughout in their 328GTBs. The win went in favour of Pullen amd therefore in the order shown here. Just out of sight is Nicky Paul-Barron:-


Paul-Barron was probably driver of the race, since, in a 'standard' 328GTB, he not only stayed close to the two leaders, but at one stage snatched 2nd as they fell over each other in their battle. He finished 3rd just 0.6 secs behind Culver:-


Unfortunately, Stuart Anderson only completed 1 lap in his 250TRC replica (250GTE donor) :-


This is however the real deal. Grahame Bryant had to bed his brakes in during qualiifying so started from the back of the grid. His progress forward through the 'more moderns' in the howling V12 365GTB4 to finish 6th was joy to behold (The following day his son, Ollie, had it on pole but had an off trying to recover the lead from Culver):-


John Swift finished 13th in his 308GTB:-


Whilst William Moorwood was 24th and last of he classified finishers in his 308GT4 (3 retirements):-

[Tim the Grey]

That 250 TR image brings back happy memories of sitting in Jim Allington's TR59/60, many moons ago...

Which reminds me.

I have some photos of either the first GT40, or a Lola of some description. I copied them from Jim's prints, as he'd lost the negatives, and needed copies.

Any use to anyone out there? Not huge quality, from what I remember...

[John Turner]

The last race of the day. A great field of sports and GT cars over 90 minutes. The unfortunate part of it was that this was a cold and overcast day and this race started at about 6.25pm by which time the light was pretty poor and most spectators had already gone home cold, which was a real shame. Even I left after about 45 minutes when I could no longer take any pics and a thaw out in the car beckoned. With hindsight, might I suggest that this could be the feature race of the first day of this meeting and start earlier, unless of course it was intended to evoke dusk time running? What do others think? To give some indication of the sort of cars in this race, I've increased the number of pics.

The AC Cobra of Rick and Rob Hall was on pole and led from early on. However, it was to finish 2nd some 30 seconds behind the winner:-


A very famous Healey 3000, DD300 finished in 28th place in the hands of Christiaen Van Lanschot and Karsten Le Blanc:-


Jim Woodley and Iain Rowley were last of the classified finishers in their lotus 17 (1098cc) but clearly had problems, since they finished 33 laps down on the winner but with lap times which suggested a midfield finish was entirely possible. The 1220cc version of Horsman/McIntyre fared much better finishing a strong 6th, but I'm showing Jim and Iain's car on this occasion since I've featured Peter's car before and it will appear again shortly when I get onto the recent HSCC Silverstone event!:-


Not the best of pics but it doesn't come out too often. The Sunbeam Tiger Le Mans of Jon Finniemore and Chris Beighton which finished 18th:-


As with Peter Horsman's Lotus, I feel that Roger Will's Corvette has had plenty of exposure (and I only got one halfway decent shot of Roger's car which he shared with Joe Twyman to finish 13th) so to prove that others race occasionally (!), here's the Mark Gibbon/David Hall car which finished 26th:-


Exotic competitor; the Ferrari 275GTB of David Fitzsimons and Neil Tolich who finished 15th:-


Another Pocket Rocket victory though. Although the Hall/Hall Cobra posted fastest lap it was the Jon Shipman/Mark Hales TVR Griffith which prevailed, to win by nearly 30 secs:-


In my mind's eye, this conjures up Le Mans, 1963. The Wolfgang Friedrichs/David Clark Aston Martin DP214 Replica leads the Steve Tandy/Peter Chambers E-Type through the Old Hairpin. They finished 9th and 19th respectively:-


And that's it from me, as I didn't attend the second day.

[terence]

Yet another excellent report John.I think that by allowing these races to run into dusk is great for drivers but not so good for the marshalls.The hardier spectators enjoy most of these events as long as they dont have the rest of the family in tow.I think that mid-summer is a better bet for enduros such as this or run them a bit earlier.I see that the three hout at Snet next week is a 15.10 start but at least it will end in daylight.