[Spridgets] Driving to track in England in race form

WeslakeMonza1330 at aol.com WeslakeMonza1330 at aol.com
Tue May 24 12:39:59 MDT 2011


There was a time when it really was a type of paint.  At some vintage  
hill-climb meetings today there is a man at the meeting who will paint the  
number on your racing car.  The 'paint' washes off, not least because  there's 
no guarantee you'll get to have the same number when you next compete  with 
the car.
 
There was also a time when in the UK there was no national speed limit on  
the motorways.  The story goes that AC ran a Cobra down the M1 Motorway at  
a speed close to 200mph.  The speed caused a sensation in the British  
press, questions were asked in the Houses of Parliament and a 'trial' or  
'temporary measure' of a 70mph speed limit was imposed on motorways (the limit  was 
already 60mph elsewhere) and we've had a 70mph limit ever since.
 
It seems that times change and attitudes and habits change but the 70mph  
speed limit is here to stay.
 
As far as racing D -types go I think at least one car was wrecked by a  
mechanic driving it to a race.  I think the crash was in France - I bet  that 
made Jaguar sit up and think about transporters.  Then there was  the time 
with Alfred Owen who owned Rubery Owen and BRM racing burned out the  clutch 
by slipping it too much when driving the racing car to the circuit - this  
may have been Spa.
 
Weslake-Monza 1330
 
 
In a message dated 24/05/2011 19:19:22 GMT Daylight Time, thcollin at mtu.edu  
writes:

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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