Brands Hatch, 6th – 7th of July
Last week we reported on the Centenary Celebration of Aston
Martin in Kensington Gardens and as mentioned there this was
just the conclusion of a variety of events celebrating the jubilee of
the marque. Already 2 week earlier, on the first weekend in July
the sporty part of the festivities was held at the Brands Hatch
race park about 20 miles south-east of London.
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Again the Aston Martin Owners Club in association with the
factory was responsible for the race meeting with 10 races on the
two days both on the Indy and the GP Circuit. Beside the different
races held by the Club on their race weekends this included a
couple of GT and Centenary races as a special for this event.
Certainly some of the most attractive races of the weekend were
the St. John Horsfall Memorial Trophy and the Team-Challenge for
pre-war cars. St. John Horsfall is known for racing his personal 2
Litre Speed Model before the war to several class wins in major
races when the official race program was stopped. More important
he brought Aston Martin back on the map when he won the first
race with the new 2 Litre Sports (the “Spa Special”) in 1948 at
Spa at the beginning of the David Brown Era, unfortunately he
died soon after racing an ERA at Silverstone. Since that time the
Aston Martin Owners Club has an annual race in memory of
Horsfall open for pre-war Aston Martin during their main race
weekend (usually in Silverstone). The practice on Saturday
morning was not just for the Horsfall race but also for the
team-challenge when the Astons were racing against some
Invicta, Frazer Nash and Bentley for a team price just as in the
1930s.
Frontrunners at the St. Horsfall Trophy were the race prepared 2
Litre Speed Models, especially the single seater and “Red
Dragon”, raced by Dick Seaman in the 1936 TT. These races
were held on Saturday on the smaller Indy circuit.
Further major races were the two centenary races, one for the
historic Astons and one for the modern GT cars.
The historic Centenary Race on Sunday was open for all Astons
built before 1965 held on the full GP circuit in a 30 minutes race.
Some of the pre-war cars stayed for this race but most of the
entries were lightweight conversions of DB4 road cars and from
the DB2-series plus a DB3 and a DB3S that were also entered in
the 50s sports cars race that included the Jaguar XK Trophy with
many XK120-150. The race was finally won by a DB4 GT Zagato
replica built on a normal DB4.
The two main races were the 100 minutes (for 100 years) races of
the British GT4 Challenge on Saturday and the Centenary GT
Race on Sunday. Unlike the historic races these were for the
latest Aston Martin V8 in GT race configuration attracting a grid
that is usually not seen on historic race club weekends. These
were also the cars the paddocks at the pit lane were reserved for
as they certainly needed more room and preparation with the
huge team trailers in the back than most of the historic racers
that were arriving on a small car trailer behind a tow car.
In addition to the pure Aston Martin races a few more races from
the AMOC club calendar were held in Brands Hatch, for example
a multi marque race were the DB4 had to face Porsche 964 or
928 plus Ferrari 355 or Austin Healey 3000 giving the grid a wild
mix of different eras.
More homogenous were the touring races of the HRDC All-stars
and Touring Greats with different classes of touring cars from the
1960s including Jaguar MKI, Austins, Morris Minor or Fiat Abarth.
These races are fun to watch even without the multi celebrity
entrants of the St. Mary´s Trophy at the Goodwood Revival were
these cars are shown later that year.
Aside from the racing a timeline (although not comparable with
the one in Kensington Gardens), small demonstration displays of
the Aston Martin Racing history and the connection to the James
Bond movies were located in the infield behind the paddock
buildings. A few pre-war Astons were lined up with the later
DB4/5/6 to run a demonstration lap of 100 cars during the lunch
break. They were joined by the Nimrod, AMR1, a prototype DB7,
the famous DB4GT Zagato “2VEV” and a V8 GTE driven by Bruno
Senna who was on hand to sign autographs in the Aston Martin
tent.
When looking back to the Brands Hatch Race Meeting this was
some entertaining racing for the spectators showing some
interesting races but it was more a normal Club racing weekend
than a special event like the one in Kensington Gardens two
weeks later. The fact that the most interesting race cars are
getting to expensive and are rarely seen on club races these days
does also affect the races of one of the oldest and most active
single car clubs in the world. Cars like a DBR1 (DBR1/5 was
seen in the paddocks but not driven) are seen nowadays on major
events like the Goodwood Revival but otherwise more often on the
concours lawn. For those expecting to see several of the DB3S or
DBR1 racing the meeting might have been a little bit disappointing
but for the realistic ones this is what you get today when visiting a
race meeting.
Report & Images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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