Photos by Dave Brassington.
The new format for the Historic Touring Car Challenge incorporating the Tony Dron Trophy was a great success – launching their season at Donington Historic Festival with a full grid with reserves, (who all got to race. ) The weather arrived to give the ‘perfect storm’ at half time, leading to tyre changes and huge excitement including the timing loop and screens going down, leaving the timekeepers to resort to lap counting. The pole setters Mark Smith and David Cuff in the BMW M3 E30 eventually lost out to the Ford Capri of Steve Soper and Chris Ward for the overall win, with Patrick Watts finally getting the credit for securing a magnificent third place with Nick Swift in the MG Metro Turbo after running throughout the appalling weather on slicks.
It was the Rover SD1 of Tim Harvey and Andy Bruce who led home the first ever Tony Dron Trophy race, finishing a highly-creditable 9th overall amongst the Group A and Group 2 cars. 2nd and 3rd overall went to Gary Feakins’ Capri and the Camaro of Grahame and Ollie Bryant respectively, with only 1 second between them at the flag. But it was a spectacular show right the way through the grid, given the broad spread of speeds, experience and the conditions, it was very a clean race with remarkably little incident.
The Motor Racing Legends Historic Touring Car Challenge is next out at Silverstone Classic, (July 29, 30th and 31st) just a few entry spaces are still available. To enter visit: http://www.motorracinglegends.com
