That was fantastic!
My dad and I went for both days, camping somewhere north of Derby overnight. We got there nice and early on Sunday which is a good thing, the place was packed!
We were sitting on the outside of the Old Hairpin both days, which is a fantastic vantage point. You can watch the cars from the exit of Redgate all the way down the hill, through the Old Hairpin and then out the other side again. 👍
We arrived pretty late on Saturday, and as a result the first race we saw was the first Megane race. It was pretty uneventful until the last few laps. As one of the backmarkers came through the Hairpin his car started spluttering and backfiring. I thought it was just a dud engine, but then next lap 4 or 5 cars were doing it, and another had simply stopped at the top of the hill at Redgate. Turned out that when the teams had done their fuel calculations the day before it had been nice and hot, whereas Saturday was a lot cooler. The fuel was denser than they had anticipated, and so several cars simply ran dry in tha last few laps, the race leader included.
The Clio races in the evening were hilarious, with cas flying off all over the place. The races were simply to determine who got into the championship race on Sunday. One driver from each group of 20 would be eliminated, and the lap times would determine the drivers place on the 38(!) car grid on Sunday.
Nobody seemed to have told the drivers that all they had to do was not finish last though, and so we got some extra laps thanks to a red flag in each race. In the first race 3 or 4 cars came tumbling off into the Old Hairpin, and in the second I think there was a crash up at McLeans.
Sunday morning got off to a shakey start, with two races, the Eurocup Formula Renaults and the Clio's, having two restarts each.
Oddly the Formula Renault race was restarted because of crashes, and the Clio race because of some confusion on the grid. I think everybody that has ever seen a Clio race expected it to be the other way around.
One of the drivers did a very graceful 360 on the grass under Starkey's bridge after being tapped coming out of the hairpin, but sadly the camera was playing up and I missed the photo.
Then the historical F1's came out and my God, the sound!
One of the Lotus Renault's especially, the 2nd one in line for anybody who saw them, sounded like Thor gargling as it went round.
Then, after some burnouts from the 2006 Renault F1 car, and some panicky battery buying, the 3.5L World Series cars came out. I think my ears are still ringing. Those things are
loud, like F1 loud, and they're quite a spectacle. They seemed to come streaming down through the craner curves faster than the F1 car a few minutes before, and then they roared back up the hill to McLeans.
Then the historic collection.
No Lotuses this time, but two Renault 5 Turbo's, Alpine A442 and 443's, and two F1 cars from the previous group did a few flying laps. The driver of the Maxi Turbo, in the awesome red and blue Phillips livery, was a legend. Coming out of the Old Hairpin, and again at McLeans, he'd stick the back end waaaay out, almost running off the track, before bringing it back in and screaming up the hill. The other cars weren't bad either.
After that were the, once again, rather uneventful Meganes. I'm not sure why, but they seemed to lack the excitement of the other cars. Sadly we had to leave at the end of that race.
All in all it was a fantastic weekend, with some fantastic racing and plenty of other attractions to keep you entertained in-between. I would highly recommend it to anybody, and I'm already looking forward to next year.
👍
*Picture disclaimer.*
The camera I ended up with had some major trouble focusing on stationary objects, let alone speeding cars. To that end the pictures are very poor. The lack of focus, combined with the seemingly random delay between me pressing the button and the camera actually taking the picture meant that many shots aren't even worth showing. Here are some of the 'better' ones, all taken on Sunday. I've had to resize them all and, in many cases, sharpen them in Photoshop, but they still look poor.
Formula Renault Eurocup, 1st lap...
That'll be a red flag then. The driver was fine, he clambered out to a standing ovation from the crowd.
Ok, Eurocup take two...oh bugger.
Oh bugger!
Oh
bugger!!
(Bonus shot of the corner marker board being blitzed.
)
Cleanup:
This race eventually took up most of the morning.
In each row, left to right; Renault 5 Maxi Turbo, Renault 5 Turbo, Alpine A443, Alpine A442, Renault RS01 and a Renault RE40.
Note the direction the front wheels are pointing in...
This guy got a
huge cheer from the crowd, and he did it again through McLeans.
Some of the Megane drivers had a little difficulty staying on the track...
...and pointing in the right direction. The guy in the orange car slammed it down into reverse and missed being t-boned by about |----------| this much.
For a second or two this had the potential to turn into a repeat of the earlier Eurocup race, but fortunately everybody got through safely.
Again, apologies for the quality of the pictures, and indeed the length of the post. I intend to get a decent SLR camera around Christmas, so hopefully I can take some worthwile pictures next year.
