The weather gods smiled on us last Sunday for a day at Brands Hatch to watch the second day of the MSV Masters Historic Festival. The forecast rain and storms waited until we were already back home and on a second glass of Albarino. The precautionary umbrella stayed in my Lemon, and at times during the day, I wished I’d worn shorts instead of jeans as it was positively hot.
If I’m honest, you couldn’t say that about much of the racing, at least not at the very front of the various fields. In the races we watched, the early leaders pulled away from the rest very quickly. There was, however, much enjoyable tussling in the midfield, particularly among the Pre-66 Touring Cars. The numerous Mini’s, Lotus Cortina’s and Ford Falcon’s in particular were very exciting to watch, drifting over and round one of racing’s most famous bends at Paddock Hill, before blasting up to Druids and back down to Graham Hill Bend. Our seats in the Paddock Hill Grandstand gave us an excellent view of the action – Brands really is a great spectator circuit.
However, we hadn’t gone there just to watch the racing. For me, one of the beauties of these events is the freedom and access to get up close to the cars and if they’re around, talk to the drivers. In fact – possible heresy alert here – the races themselves, in terms of results, are the least interesting thing for me. I fully understand that the drivers no doubt feel quite differently about this, but I don’t “follow” the various race series or any of the drivers in particular. What I enjoy is the sight and sound of these cars being driven the way they’re meant to be, to check out the classics in the car park and especially to wander around the paddock garages and pit lane areas. So I won’t be reporting on the race results; for those, you’ll have to go to the MSV website.
After collecting the Lemon on Saturday from its pre-season full service and general fettling (with numerous things found that needed attention, as almost always seems the case), I set off just after 7:30 a.m. towards Reigate to pick up my companion for the day – a long-standing petrolhead friend – and then on to Brands, arriving just before 9:30. There were about 8 or 9 BMW’s lined up in the classic parking area, so I parked up next to the gorgeous Colorado 2002tii of Richard Stern, who manages the British 02 Register.
There were about 250 – possibly a few more – classics of various sorts present, including a good turnout from the Triumph Stag Club, plus TVR’s, Ferrari’s (though in both cases mostly moderns), Corvettes, Porsches, a few Lancia’s, Morgan’s, Alfa Romeo’s, TR’s, Marcos, and a others. It wasn’t as spectacular as at the Silverstone Classic, but then it also doesn’t pretend to be.
Among those classics, some of the standouts – for me – were the immaculate black Porsche 930 Turbo, which had two equally perfect red companions, a gorgeous silver 1600 356, and a perfect pair of Triumph TR3’s.
Most bonkers car – and definitely not a classic – was the vivid red Aussie Vauxhall VXR8 Maloo pick-up, surely a candidate for The World’s Fastest Pick-up.
Most disappointing car was probably the Lotus Europa in some kind of pale green with yellow wheels; such a great car deserved better and it just looked insipid to me, though some of you may think differently.
Of course, the main attractions were the classic racers, and here there was much to see and enjoy, and while we missed the Gentlemen Drivers event and therefore their cars (their race was run the previous day), there were still many highlights.
The Historic F1 cars harked back to an era when they still had proper steering wheels and gear levers, with my favourites being the Parmalat-liveried Brabham BT49, JPS Lotus 77, and the Williams FW07’s. The sounds these cars made as they howled around the track were glorious. Unfortunately, this race finished under the safety car, which is always somewhat unsatisfactory.
Almost as impressive were the Historic Sports Cars – no Porsche 917’s or Ferrari 512’s, but a number of mighty Lola T70’s instead. One of the most competitive runners though was an Abarth Osella PA1 in bright red, which gave one of the Chevron B19’s a good run up front for most of the race. These two displaced only 2000 cc and 1790 cc respectively, compared to the 5.7 litre T70, but were significantly quicker, proving it’s not always about power – no matter what a certain J. Clarkson might think! These classic sports racers were much more enjoyable to me than the more recent Masters Endurance Legends, such as the Peugeot 908 – impressive and rapid as they are, they just don’t stir the soul in the same way.
By this time we’d already walked quite a lot in rising temperatures, and a cold beer and burger were very necessary before racing recommenced for the afternoon.
I’ve already mentioned the Pre-66 saloons, and equally enjoyable was the Touring Car event, dominated by entries from The Netherlands; unsurprising since it’s a Dutch-sponsored series. Another big field, and some great cars, with the bravest – aand perhaps unsurprisingly, slowest – entries being the two Trabant 601 RS’s.
I confess we missed the F2 race in exchange for a wander around the pit lane, and left before the second of the two Touring Car races, having already spent in excess of seven hours at the circuit.
It was a good event, blessed with lashings of sunshine as opposed to the lashings of rain we had expected, and we finished the day with a gentle late afternoon drive in the sunshine along the A25 through the picturesque villages of Brasted, Westerham, Oxted, Bletchingly and others. The Lemon got me home to finish over 150 miles of motoring without fuss, ready for our next outing this coming Sunday.
Stunningly pretty on the one side – not so much on the other side.
