The weekend of 19/20th October saw the final 2024 event for Motor Racing Legends, the race card included the new series for GT3 Legends; The RAC Pall Mall Cup three hours, the RAC Woodcote and Stirling Moss Trophies (combined grid), the Pre 63 GTs and, the Historic Touring Cars Cup. Added to the event the Historic Racing Driver’s Club brought three grids; the Jack Sears Trophy, The Gerry Marshall Trophy and, the Dunlop Allstars and Alfa Challenge.

Oh and it rained!

Saturday 19 October:

Race 1 HTCC:

A wet qualifying for the HTCC kicked off the weekend when 14 Touring cars took to the track. There were three Nissan Skyline GTRs but surprisingly, they didn’t have it all their own way. Ric Wood in his Skyline took pole position with the BMW M3s of Darren Fielding and Paddy Shovlin in second and third.

The sun shone for the twenty lap race which was won by the Middlehurst/Bailey Skyline, sadly Wood retired on lap 15 ending a great scrap for the lead. Second was Darren Fielding in his M3 followed by the similar car of Partridge/Soper.

Race 2 GT3 Legends:

Next up was the GT3 Legends, a new series debuting this weekend. Twenty-three entries was pretty good for this nascent series and they got 20 mins of free practice before 20 mins of qualifying. So their sessions went from wet to damp. Jonathan Mitchell secured pole position in his Ferrari 458 GT3, followed by Jon Minshaw’s Z4 GT3 and Marcus Oeynhausen-Sierstorpff’s Audi R8.

The race, over 24 laps, was won by the Holme/Jordan Chevrolet Corvette ahead of the Tetley/Maton Lamborghini Gallardo GT3, with Oeynhausen-Sierstorpff’s Audi R8 in third.

Race 3 RAC Pall Mall Cup:

That man Oeynhausen-Sierstorpff shared his Jaguar E Type with Andy Newall to take pole position for the RAC Pall Mall Cup ahead of the similar car of Kent/Ward/Harris and the Evans/Littlejohn Lotus Elan 26R. Being a three hours race anything could happen and so it did. Having faltered on the green flag laps (there were two due to conditions), the Barton/Reuben TVR Griffith ran out the winners in a time of 3hrs 2 min and 10.3 secs. The Littlejohn/Evans Elan 26R was second and the Lynn S/Lynn M Lotus Elan came home in third.

And that concluded Saturday’s track action.

Sunday 20th October:

Race 4 HRDC Dunlop Allstars and Alfa Challenge:

The first qualifying was for the HRDC Dunlop Allstars and Alfa Challenge. There’s always a good selection of pre 66 GTs mixed with more modern Alfas in this race. A stalwart of this series is the combination of prep man Richard Melvin with Chris Snowden in the well prepared Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV 2000. Chris qualified in fourth. In pole position James Colburn in his Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT led home his brother Richard in a Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint. In third place was Brett Syndercombe in another Alfetta GTV.

At the end of lap 1 Snowden retired, leaving James Colburn to lead Richard Colburn home with Brett Syndercome in third. A number of drivers found the damp conditions entertaining not least David Methley in his Cobra who finished in sixth overall and first of the GTs.

Race 5 Pre 63 GTs:

Sadly only seven entries for this 1 hour race, possibly because a number of the cars were on their way to Portimao for the classic weekend on 26/27 October. So a small but perfectly formed grid was headed by the Howard Spooner Jaguar E Type, followed by the Gregor Fiskin/Patrick Blakeney-Edwards AC Cobra and the John Speirs/Nigel Greensall Shelby Cobra in third. At the end of an entertaining hour with drivers coping with the return of the rain the Speirs/Greensall Shelby Cobra took the flag with Howard Spooner and Gregor Fiskin/Patrick Blakeney-Edwards in second and third respectively.

Race 7 Royal Automobile Club Woodcote Trophy & Stirling Moss Trophy:

Sixteen cars gathered for this combined grid. Qualifying resulted in the Jarvis/Malvern Lister Costin Chevrolet taking pole by half a second from the Hudson/Morley Lister Knobbly and the Speirs/Greensall Jaguar Lister Knobbly. As with the previous race, Seirs/Greensall took the flag followed by the Jarvis/Malvern Lister Costin Chevrolet and the Lotus 11 of Dafyd Richards in second and third respectively.

Race 8 The HRDC Jack Sears Trophy:

The honour of rounding off the weekend fell to the HRDC and the Jack Sears Trophy. Thirty-four cars entered this final race of the HRDC season. The oldest was an MG YB which qualified 33rd just ahead of an Anglia 105E on the damp track. Pole position went to the Smith/Thynne Austin Mini Cooper S ahead of another Cooper S, that of Morgan R/Morgan A. Third place fell to Jack Ruddell’s Ford Mustang. Proving that the weather gods do impact races, the winners after 17 laps Speirs/Greensall (Mustang), Ruddell (Mustang) and Johnson/Ross (Mustng 289). The fastest Mini Cooper S was that driven by Burnett/Kendall which finished 9th.

Back to Race 6 The Gerry Marshall Trophy:

A bit of history:

Back in the 70s the FIA determined that saloon car races should conform to Group 1 or Group 2 Appendix J and thus the British Saloon Car Championship ran to App J Group 1. (It does get a little muddy but that’s basically it).

Now, in order to enter a car in Groups 1 and/or 2 the car required an Homologation certificate prepared by the manufacturer and approved by the FIA (or FISA as was). The certificate usually takes the form of a small A4 book showing the engine capacity and valve sizes, suspension and gearbox, wheel sizes etc. as per the road version. Any Group 2 modifications are shown as addendums to the certificate. In the UK the RAC determined that from 1976, the maximum capacity for entry into the BSCC would be 3 litres. There were smaller classes and indeed often these smaller classes produced the overall champion.

The capacity limit had the effect of removing the American “Big Bangers” from the grids in favour of the generally smaller capacity british cars, such as the Capri or the Vauxhall Commodore. It also, at the time, precluded the Rover SD1 3500s and of course the Jaguar XJ-S. Prompted by the appearance of not one, but two XJ-S’s I checked on the FIA website to discover that indeed the car had been homologated for Group 1 (certificate No. 5807) in 1980. I suspect this was because they (TWR?) were thinking of Group 2, which of course was canned by the FIA at the end of 1981! We all know what happened in the Group A era.

So, it seems that quite sensibly, the HRDC is following international rules and permitting these into the series, along with Mustangs and Chevrolets etc.

The race:

And so to qualifying which was run in damp but drying conditions. These conditions obviously suited the very rapid Golf GTi which was originally owned and raced by John Morris, but is now in the hands of his son Jim who, sharing with Matt Jackson, secured pole position ahead of the Jack Moody Rover SD1 and in third the Speirs/Greensall Hermetite Capri Mkii.

The rain fell before the start but had stopped by the time the lights went out. The first corner rather sadly saw the removal of the Morris Golf which appeared to receive an unfortunate tap from the Sirocco of Shephard and Jones. Ultimately after 15 laps the Speirs/Greensall Capri took the flag ahead of the Moody Rover and Scott Kendall’s Mini 1275 GT.

Photographs from all the races are here:

Thank You:

Finally, thank you to the marshalls, drivers, teams and of course Motor Racing Legends and the Historic Racing Drivers Club for an excellent weekend.