[Spridgets] Driving to track in England in race form

Tim Collins thcollin at mtu.edu
Tue May 24 12:13:53 MDT 2011


I was re-reading an old issue of British Car magazine (Page 11, 
October 1995) and spotted this paragraph which pertains to driving to 
the track with racing decals, etc.

"In his hilarious autobiography, "Touch Wood!," Duncan Hamilton, who 
won Le Mans in 1953, recalls driving a D-type from Coventry to Surrey 
after a heavy fall of snow; "Many sports-racing cars would be 
undriveable under such conditions," he pointed out. "No one has ever 
had to take a Jaguar to a race on a transporter." Lofty England - the 
team manager who became Jaguar's chief executive "always said that if 
you cannot drive a car on the road it will never be reliable in a 
race." By Phil Llewellin.

So presumably in the old days the "war paint" was applied at the 
track and then removed for the drive home - or the rules have changed 
since 1953. It would be interesting to know why this was OK in the 
old days and frowned upon today.

Tim Collins
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12702006@N07/sets/ 


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