Motorsport at the Palace

At the dawn of motoring a group of chaps got together to perform some basic driving tests in the grounds of Penge Place, the site became home to the Crystal Palace that burnt down in the 1930s, but the racing continued. A circuit was laid out round the lakes and trees of the park and used up to the 1970s when it was closed. In the late 1990s a shortened version was used for a sprint organised by the Sevenoaks & District Motorclub. A decade after it was last used the club has resurrected the event and it was held on the last weekend in May.

Eighteen months before I’d spied a small article in one of the motorsport magazines and made a note to keep checking the website for information, as the date grew closer details emerged and entry lists got bigger until the weekend arrived. With the Dunsfold Caterham day already in the diary I pencilled the sprint in for Monday, luckily several Retro Riders chose that day too, so in the Passat for an earlyish start we found ourselves at 10am in the shadow of the transmitter.



The show was split into two, the upper area contained a few display cars and a spectator area towards the end of the course, the lower area housed the main classic car show, the race paddock and the start line. Meeting up with David & Matt from LTV we set about the cars on show. Local clubs had provided over 100 classic and sportscars to admire.







Gathering up fellow RRers Seth and his family and Bruce we headed to the race paddock to see the awesome machinery being fettled ready for the practise sessions.













Media man Seth rattled off loads of photos for publication in the future, Bruce snapped like a mad man totalling over a 1000 shots during his automotive weekend in the big smoke.



With the racing proper starting at 1pm we walked round to the upper terrace that looked over the first corner and the run into and out of the hairpin and braking zone for the chicane. With an elevated view we watched the first set of runs. Cars were grouped by age starting with the slowest and oldest a 1903 Humberette working up the 2004 Stohr DSR sportscar

















A short break followed and we took the opportunity to move from the upper level to a spot on the back straight, this enabled us to see all the way down the first straight to the cars leaving the start line, then we lost them briefly as they took the hairpin before shooting into view in front of us and blasting out of the chicane round the curve to the finish line.

























The FTD was a blistering 35.55 seconds for the short course compared to a sedate couple of minutes for the 1903 Humber! Fingers crossed the club get permission to run the event next year, I’ll certainly be there and hopefully there will be a RR club stand there as well.

The rest of the photos are here.

Steve.

Caterhams at Dunsfold

6.4 litre, 450bhp from 16 cylinders (4 of which are air-cooled), 29 wheels, 8 wheel drive, probably around 3.5 tonnes, ~10 seats and a double bed, no power steering, no ABS and only 3 ECUs... It was a strange convoy that cruised into Dunsfold this morning for the “Caterham Handling Day” Using the Camper as a race support truck, we set up in the paddock to swap from road wheels to ones suitable for ragging around.







With the 7s ready we listened to the drivers briefing before mounting up for the off. There are several activities on offer during the morning session. 0-60 sprints down the runway, a slalom course, a freestyle arena that was wetted down to allow maximum slip and the Top Gear track for fast laps behind a pace car.







For the first trip round the track I hopped in to the snug Tillet seat of Andy Bs Caterham, we set out and trundled round behind a very sedately driven 7







Next up was more slalom time.









Back over to the TG track I nabbed a spot on the final corner to snap the cars coming through.





After a final session on the track it was the end of the AM session and time for the lunch break, before food it was time for a real racer to hit the track, so dropping a donation in to the charity bucket I joined Caterham and Camper owner Angus, who was due to do a few laps for anyone who fancied a sedate lap, we saddled up in the van and followed him round. Rumour has it we managed a sub three minute lap.









With the 7 owners out of the van I did a last brace of laps with the wife and son of one of the marshals, this time I managed a foot to the floor 70mph pass of the “Follow Through”





All that was left to do was swap back over to the road wheels and pack the van.



Before applying my new sticker to the rear window and heading home.



The rest of the photos from a hi-octane morning are here

Steve.