With green shoots of COVID recovery clearly visible throughout the UK and unusually balmy spring weather abounding, the motor racing calendar started with a bang at Castle Combe on Saturday when the Racing Club organised a well-supported Media and Track Day for competitors in the club’s 2022 races and championships, writes Ken Davies. Remarkably, given the Wiltshire circuit’s distinguished … [Read more...]
Racing
Classic car owners concerns over new ‘tampering law’
A recent survey shows 84 per cent of classic and specialist car owners are against the Department for Transport’s anti-tampering proposals that would outlaw tampering with a system, part or component of a vehicle intended or adapted to be used on the road. The poll by classic and enthusiast vehicle insurance specialist, Footman James, shows that 84 per cent of the 4,500 respondents are opposed to … [Read more...]
Quick Vic has left the circuit
The death of Vic Elford in Florida on 13 March at the age of 86 has robbed Great Britain of one of its finest and most versatile endurance sports car drivers of the 1960s, writes Ken Davies. Victor Henry Elford was one of the most versatile and intuitive drivers of his era, driving in 13 World Championship F1 Grands Prix 1968-1971 and scoring a total of 8 championship points, but this was merely … [Read more...]
Voice of motor racing falls silent
For 45-years David George was probably the west country’s best known motor racing commentator, synonymous with Castle Combe Circuit where for 22-years he served as number-two to Richard ‘Dickie’ Davies, in a treaty DG relished. Always strangely uneasy about being cast in a lead role, DG initially called the action from a garden shed perched precariously on a scaffolding tower at Old Paddock … [Read more...]
Historic F1 sounds echo again at Silverstone
Historic-sounding F1 cars will once again be lining up at Silverstone over the August Bank Holiday. The Silverstone Grand Prix circuit will once again reverberate to the awesome shrill of F1’s best-ever sounding engines at The Classic this summer 26-28 August. The high-revving V8, V10 and V12 powertrains introduced at the end of the 1980s to supersede their turbocharged predecessors are widely … [Read more...]
Classic Touring Cars heading to Castle Combe
Recognising the increasing popularity of Group 1 Touring Cars of the 1970s and early ’80s with today’s generations of racers and spectators, Automobiles Historiques is co-promoting an exciting new race for the machines at Castle Combe’s Autumn Classic on 24 September. It will run alongside a fifth appearance of the Royal Automobile Club Historic Award-winning GT & Sports Car Cup series … [Read more...]
Britain’s first F1 car buck found
The body buck for the original Mark 1 P15 V16, handcrafted in 1949 to help build Britain’s first Formula One car, has been found, and will be used to build Chassis V, the second of three ‘new’ 16-cylinder P15 V16 BRM racing cars. The body forming jig was created to build the first six BRM cars that were unveiled to the world at RAF Folkingham on December 15th 1949, and ran at Goodwood’s … [Read more...]
Lighting up UK circuit safety
Motorsport UK, the British Motor Sports Training Trust and the UK’s largest race circuit owners are proud to announce that there will be a rollout of FIA High-Tech Light Panels across the top Motorsport UK licensed race circuits from this spring. Motorsport UK, the BMSTT and the UK circuit owners have agreed to work with leading motorsport safety solutions provider EM Motorsport, a principal … [Read more...]
New era begins for Castle Combe Circuit
The prestigious and high-profile historic endurance racing series, GT & Sports Car Cup,run by Flavien & Vanessa Marçais has successfully provided the feature race at Castle Combe’s Autumn Classic race meeting for the past four years and proved a firm favourite with competitors and spectators. Now Castle Combe Racing Club is pleased to announce a closer working collaboration as the GTSCC’s … [Read more...]
Audi & Porsche look at green F1 racing
German media reports discussions are at an advanced stage for Audi and Porsche to enter F1 in a couple of years. The Volkswagen Group supervisory board could decide next month whether its Audi and Porsche subsidiaries should compete in Formula One, German business paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported. It would be costly but would give the two brands increased marketing exposure in … [Read more...]