Gallery
“If it had been a half-hour race, I’d have lost,” said Graeme Dodd graciously, after winning the first BRDC Historics Sportscars round of 2008 at the VSCC SeeRed meeting at Donington, in his Cooper Monaco T49. “Did you hear it misfiring? Jamie made me push so hard that I cooked the brakes, too, but the problems seemed to sort themselves out by the end.”
Having diced convincingly with Dodd through the first half of the race, poleman Jamie McIntyre, sharing with Neil Cunningham, had to settle for second place (and first in class) in his Lister Chevrolet, with Ewan McIntyre third in his Lotus 15. Other class winners included the Lotus 17 Prototype of Horsman/Lees and the Wood/Whyte Widi MkII.
This was the first time out for the BRDC Historic Sportscars in its new format, under the freshly appointed Motor Racing Legends management. And the new organisers stuck to their guns over the promise of stricter eligibility requirements and scrutineering. “As promised, we brought our own FIA eligibility scrutineer to Donington,” explained Duncan Wiltshire of Motor Racing Legends, “and after the race we put the cars which came 1st, 2nd and 3rd overall, plus all the class winners, through post-race scrutineering. This picked up a few minor issues to be put right.”
This attitude seemed to go down well with competitors. Michael Quinn (grandson of Sir William Lyons), who shared a Lister Jaguar with Trevor Groom in the Donington race, expressed the majority view when he said he was “delighted that Motor Racing Legends is clamping down on eligibility and authenticity. It’s absolutely the right way for historic motor racing to be going.”
Adrian van der Kroft, out in his Cooper Monaco, added, “I stopped racing in the BRDC Championship about 18 months ago, partly because of the driving standards. It was like modern racing in old cars. Now we get longer races, with two drivers, and this takes away some of the aggression. It’s now a much friendlier atmosphere but I think it will take a while for people to fully appreciate the new format and the way it’s being run.”
The next round of the 2008 BRDC Historic Sportscars is at the Grand Prix de l'Age d'Or at Dijon, 27-29 June.
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