The early May bank holiday seems to have become a tradition for us to go and see some good old fashioned motor racing. This year the Donington Historic Festival appeared on our radar with what looked to be a pretty exciting schedule. I'd only been to Donington once before, as a child, to the Grand Prix collection so was interested to see how it would be as a circuit for watching and photographing.
As it turned out it was pretty damned excellent. After getting our bearings, drinking coffee and eating some breakfast while watching a sports car qualifying session we went for a wander through the paddock while an F2 race was underway, single seaters not being our particular bag.
The first race we were to see was the Group C cars, and while I've seen some of them running up the hill at the Festival of Speed, one at a time, before it was excellent to see them being used as originally intended. We headed down to what looked liek a good vantage point on the inside of the track at the bottom of the Craner Curves. Biggest highlight was the Sauber Mercedes, a C11 that was originally a test car and so never used in races when new, but absolutely ran away from the rest of the field yesterday. Other cars included Spices, a couple of Porsche 962s and at least one Jaguar and a Lancia.
While the other cars sound like highly stressed revvy race engines, the Mercedes has a really deep throaty roar that is so distinctive, almost American sounding.
The next race up, which we watched form the same position at the bottom of the Craner Curves, was for pre-'61 sports cars eg Allard, Jag C type, Lister-Jaguars, Aston DBR1
More to come later from the car club displays, Pre-war racing cars and the sadly tragic pre-66 Saloon Car race.
As it turned out it was pretty damned excellent. After getting our bearings, drinking coffee and eating some breakfast while watching a sports car qualifying session we went for a wander through the paddock while an F2 race was underway, single seaters not being our particular bag.
The first race we were to see was the Group C cars, and while I've seen some of them running up the hill at the Festival of Speed, one at a time, before it was excellent to see them being used as originally intended. We headed down to what looked liek a good vantage point on the inside of the track at the bottom of the Craner Curves. Biggest highlight was the Sauber Mercedes, a C11 that was originally a test car and so never used in races when new, but absolutely ran away from the rest of the field yesterday. Other cars included Spices, a couple of Porsche 962s and at least one Jaguar and a Lancia.
While the other cars sound like highly stressed revvy race engines, the Mercedes has a really deep throaty roar that is so distinctive, almost American sounding.
The next race up, which we watched form the same position at the bottom of the Craner Curves, was for pre-'61 sports cars eg Allard, Jag C type, Lister-Jaguars, Aston DBR1
More to come later from the car club displays, Pre-war racing cars and the sadly tragic pre-66 Saloon Car race.
Maybe meet you there next year?!
)... got a handful of mobile phone photos which I'll share later.
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