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2011 Spa Six Hours report

There’s no arguing that a true Spa event needs rain but after a wet Six Hours in 2010 – and a rather moist Revival weekend still soaking our memories as well – we were rather pleased with the untypical Ardennes weather welcoming us as we navigated into the Spa-Francorchamps valley with its peculiar micro-climate. We were treated to a totally sunny autumn weekend, the cars basking in warmth right up to sunset. Even at night the six-hour enduro continued in most agreeable circumstances. It was still tough on the cars though…

So Spa gave us a pleasant reversal of fortune, with bodywork acting as reflector shields for a change, instead of surfaces that droplets of water can desperately cling on to. In the paddock, mechanics seemed to be working at a more leisurely pace, even though their checklists looked just as long as they always do. Drivers, meanwhile, kicked their feet up as a way to focus on their forthcoming race – or races, in the cases of Roger Wills, Manfredi Rossi, Simon Hadfield and other car-wielding gents who spent more time in their assorted ground rockets than out of them. With regards to seat time, historic racing weekends are still the best way of spending your fortune while getting a good return of fun. Lees verder…

2011 Circuit Revival Meeting report

Usually right after the end of another marvelous Goodwood Revival, it’s that time of year again. Inevitably we are forced to wonder how the Earl of March and his team will be able to top this latest experience. For over a decade, the Revival has been the picture-perfect historic event, almost to the point that perfection becomes a niggle. To some extent the event is hailing from a parallel universe, bringing us back to a time that never even existed in the way it is celebrated right now. How is that going to get any better? Still, they pull it off every time, with tiny but noticeable improvements to what was already at 100%. But the best improvement of them all this time proved to be the good-old fashioned British weather.

Rain. Lots of it. It had been missing from the event from almost since the second rain-swept edition. Mercifully, as commentators used to say when the Goodwood Motor Circuit was graced yet again by a glorious autumn sun. How wrong they were. There is no denying that the light of a setting sun in September, slowly falling away into the South Downs horizon, is of magical proportions. Even the ugliest racing car somehow looks right when touched by those fragile rays descending on its surface at a very shallow angle. The same applies to the smart-dressed and greased-up people swarming about between the machinery. Yet all those years we were missing out on a different kind of spectacle – that of cars struggling with the worst the weather gods could throw down at us. Lees verder…

Brooklands: preserving the past

For years, the former oval of Brooklands was a largely neglected piece of motor racing nostalgia in the sleepy town of Weybridge, Surrey. There, in the southwestern outskirts of London, lay the forgotten remains of what is now advertised as the birthplace of British motorsport and aviation. Things changed when Mercedes-Benz bought the place. On the back of grand German investment, the track’s timber racing sheds and rusty, worn-down aeroplane hangars remarkably became fashionable again. At a time when everyone mourned the death of leading Brooklands conservationist Bill Boddy we went to see if the Spirit of Brooklands is still alive.

We had no idea what to expect, having visited the former glory of Brooklands almost at the end of its prolongued state of limbo, the site as racing circuit having reached its operational nadir in 1939. In our minds, the territory was still as we left it at the beginning of the century. A place you could simply drive down to, accessing the area at the Banking Bend before letting the car roll down to the bottom of the Test Hill to park it underneath one of the historic awnings. Then it was a matter of walking down the battered concrete on the Finishing Straight to meet up with the banked part of the circuit still present, with no-one in sight to stop you from attempting to reach the Members Bridge the hard way. Having survived those escapades, it was time to admire the preservation work done by the Brooklands Society. In 2002, the Brooklands Museum had been receiving visitors long since, its trust having been established in 1987 and regularly opening its doors from 1991, but the lock-ups and sheds housing its modest collection felt alienated all the same. You could sense the struggle against the odds to at least keep Brooklands dwell in the miserable semi-existence the circuit had endured since the Second World War, albeit very much tidied up compared to the wasteland it had been when Bill Boddy first returned to set foot on it sometime in the early seventies. Lees verder…

A tale of two worlds

Europe and North America: commonly denominated as ‘the Western world’, sharing the same popular culture in many ways, yet literally and mentally thousands of miles apart in their appreciation of sports and leisure activities. Motorsport is a prime example of the sporting chasm between the continents. Americans and – to a lesser degree – Canadians seem to enjoy a very different kind of motor racing compared to what racing fans in Europe are used to. But has it always been this way?

And it’s not just motorsports. The chasm is present in various team sports, not just on a organisational level but in the actual sports as well. Europe has soccer and rugby, the North Americans have football. Europe has field hockey, North Americans prefer ice hockey. As the rest of the world – from South America to Japan – usually latches on to what is hip in the cradle of western society, even Canada enjoying acting European once in a while, most of the time the US is left in splendid isolation.

This has led to numerous reproaches travelling across the Atlantic condemning European arrogance and American self-righteousness. These truly go both ways. The Old Continent often gets criticised for claiming ‘world’ status when in fact the various FIA championships are European-based with the odd ‘overseas’ round attached to it. Yet in the US ‘world championships’ are invariably hosted for any number of sports in which Americans are undeniably the best, with the rest of the world hardly having a look-in. Lees verder…