Rain beyond measure, saturating the track and soaking my gear. Drivers slithering round, desperately searching out the grip, the rasp of on-off throttles distinct over the relentless hammering sound of the falling water. Noise beyond belief, standing open mouthed in the pit-lane as 20,000 horses struggled on the leash in front of me, the 50-plus big-banger sportscars of the Masters Historic waiting to flood out onto the sun-drenched track. The refreshing ice in a chilled beaker of oh-so-British Pimms as I took in the latest bonkers-fast road-racer Morgan AR about to be launched. Flares in the gloaming sky as aerobatic planes danced around above the roaring Group C cars that raged below.
Such a range of extremes at the 2015 Silverstone Classic.
I love going to car events and almost without exception enjoy any and all styles of festival whilst I’m there. But there are some that in retrospect particularly stand out. That’s usually down to specific visceral moments, usually unexpected, that stick in the memory.
Already this year I’ve been lucky enough to attend some incredible events, like the annual Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland, the Spirit Of Montjuic Festival in Barcelona and theGoodwood Festival Of Speed. Each had its moments of joy and wonder; all were an overload of both quantity and quality.
However, the Silverstone Classic was a different beast. It blasted me with so many differing emotions over the two days I was there. Sensory overload one minute, delight in new discoveries the next, the ever-changing conditions to the kick of a particularly good chicken tikka kebab. It all went to easing the aching muscles from trudging round Silverstone’s never-ending perimeter.
It started with the biblical levels of rain on Friday afternoon, following a brutal five hours stuck in traffic on the nightmare merry-go-round that is the M25 London Orbital Motorway. A decent lunchtime arrival ebbed away until it seemed like I’d barely arrive before the entire track closed down for the night.
Finally parked up, I signed on and arranged my gear as quickly as possible. Within seconds the boot of my car was already soaking as I struggled to waterproof my kit; within metres of speed-walking to the main gate everything from boots up was saturated. But I was strangely happy. I actually enjoy proper, heavy rain – although my gear never thanks me for it.
My only concern was whether anyone would actually risk taking to the track as the afternoon drained away and the dark evening closed in. As I moved closer, there seemed to be a lot of cars heading in the other direction…
I’d been thinking of concentrating on certain aspects of the Classic. After all, I’ve already given you a flavour of Group C, Formula 1 and classic sportscars at previous events such as the Spirit Of Montjuic Festival. In particular, there would be the ’90s GT Legends and a healthy dose of Super Touring cars – but then I arrived and that plan went out of the window.
I’m useless, basically. No ability to concentrate as soon as I’m faced with any kind of collection of cars. Even though the majority of car club members had dissipated in the face of the storm, there was still enough of a smattering for it to take an age to make my way through a scattering of steadfast Cobras and TVRs that remained.
Even better, there was still an ice cream van. Not just any Mr. Whippy either, but a Merc van with aero. Go-faster ice cream.
There still wasn’t any noise from the track though. Silverstone was eerily free of the sound of exploding air and petrol, instead I had the incessant pitter-patter of falling rain that reverberated around inside the hood of my rain jacket along with the splash of passing buses.
As I continued, I came across the odd cluster of the most hardy of spectators finally making their way to spots for the vintage shuttles, ready to return them to the sanctuary of modern cars with things like heaters and comfy seats.
Ah, the cruel promises of an English summer!
But then what was that? A growing rumble from afar, emanating from the direction of Silverstone’s sweeping Wing pit complex? Cars. Racing cars.
CHAPTER TWO
Reign In The Rain
My concerns about track action abated. These are racing drivers we’re talking about. Whether professional or amateur, of course they’d be out, whatever the conditions, whatever the value of the cars they had under them.
Because of the nature of historic racing, there are plenty of the latter category, and it’s those people we have to thank for bringing us such a glorious and heavyweight display of machinery from across the gamut of motor racing history. After all, there’s no real commercial benefit, no sponsorship opportunities of note. It’s about pure enjoyment, just for the sake of it. This is a very expensive hobby for a lot of these guys, that we get to share in.
Iconic racers turned out for the Classic literally in their hundreds, sporting original liveries and classic spartan colours that just accentuate clean lines. The specific cars slithering around in front of me were from the International Trophy for Classic GT Cars (Pre ’66) – just one of 18 packed grids of single seaters, touring cars, sports prototypes and more.
Two pages of the race card were filled with the entries for this grid alone: 58 of them! Madness. And even madder, most of them had taken to the track despite the conditions.
I picked them up at the modern Arena loop – a good place to spectate, if not a favourite part of the track for the drivers, with its lazy hard left less of a challenge and more just a bit frustrating.
But that’s in the dry. In the wet, anything that involves turning the wheel in a vintage racecar devoid of both downforce and cutting edge wet-weather rubber is a tricky proposition.
Superhuman effort was required. Which this Lotus boasted it had…
There were Jaguars a-plenty, mostly in Lightweight form and of varying authenticity, but for the most part I really don’t care about chassis plates. In this lithe form the E-Type is stripped down to a muscular base.
One particularly rare machine was the low-slung Bizzarini 5300GT, this weekend driven by 1992 BTCC champion (and now BTCC commentator) Tim Harvey. Designed in 1965, it might have been the epitome of graceful Italian coach building but it had a growling Chevrolet small-block 327 V8 to power it.
I couldn’t help but raise a wry smile at the California plates on some the Cobras and TVR Grifs. If those were true origins of the cars, their chassis must have been weeping at the brutal change in climate… This Daytona had actually come from Poland via Sweden, so was perhaps more acclimatised.
Certainly this was the only Sunbeam we’d see on Friday…
For 40 minutes they all flung themselves at the track without impressive vigour, as I edged along behind the Armco towards the pits, against the direction of travel.
The apex of what is now Turn 1 of the modern Silverstone layout is a super-fast right kink, where you can get impressively close to the action – not the usual situation at this place.
I once saw a composite image of plane take-off trajectories from an airport; I would have loved to have done a similar thing here, as no two cars took – or were able to take, more accurately – the same line!
The sharp end of Silverstone’s pit-lane is half submerged, running flat whilst the surrounding gentle gradient rises up around it. That provides both a tunnel-like appearance up close and elevated viewing from track-side along the long length of the pits.
