VSCC Donington 2025

VSCC , Donington Park

24th May ,2025

As you will know, this meeting was abandoned following the tragic death of Julian Grimwade in the first race of the day. However, our members, whilst not racing, did qualify and I do not think it inappropriate or insensitive to record our day however curtailed. Mick Walker has supplied many high quality photos, many of which I feel should be displayed along with a few of my more mundane paddock shots.

Preamble

It was good to receive an invite from the VSCC to return to Donington after an absence of a year. We did not expect to match the excellent entry numbers that we had achieved at Spring Start, as we have never been able, for whatever reason, to field a big grid at Donington. In fact, I felt that 24 entries was pretty good, particularly when the VSCC advised us that all their race entries for this meeting were down and in fact, of the 9 races in the programme we had the third largest entry, even after David Cottingham had withdrawn the entry of his AC Ace to reduce our number to 23, all of whom attended and qualified.

I had written the programme notes before the final entries had been received and had forecast that Brian Arculus would probably take an outright victory winning the Motoring News Trophy part of the race at the same time. I had also thought that Chris Mann in the Alfa Romeo 6C Disco Volante might have a chance at winning the first race in the series named after his brother, the late Peter Mann, although he would have had his hands full with the Matt Walton AC Ace provided the latter was running properly. All my predictions went straight out of the window with the late entry of new member Charles Angrave in his very original Lotus Mk VI, although I wasn’t to foresee this until qualifying times were published!

Qualifying

The Lotus VI was not only very original, it was also very rapid! On pole in 1.26.35, it was 3.5 seconds quicker than Brian Arculus, second quickest on 1.29.99 in his Lotus Elite. After qualifying, Brian, who is a most knowledgeable and enthusiastic Lotus afficionado, and I, pored over the newcomer and it’s about as original as any car that has ever graced a FISCAR grid. It has the FWA Coventry Climax engine fitted with twin SUs, and all the correct mechanical bits. It even has the original Turner magnesium wheels, rather amazingly since I thought this material tended to degrade especially after nearly 7 decades! The point is that there is nothing to it; it’s tiny and weighs 425 kgs! To give you some idea how light this is, it’s about half the weight of Valerio Leone’s Elva Mk5 which has the same engine and carbs. The Lotus VI was the first ‘production’ car produced by Lotus, was pretty successful in period and set Colin Chapman on the road to fame. It’s performance has given us plenty to think about!

Mike Henney qualified 3rd in the Turner Climax, on 1.30.65, about where I expected, but Chris Mann’s 1.32.01 in the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante was good enough to put this exotic alongside Mike on the second row, so a brilliant effort. It would be fair to say that Matt Walton in his AC Ace might have pipped Chris but Matt was still unhappy with the performance and qualified 5th in 1.33.33. Another surprise was the Lotus Elite of Andrew Mitchell, sharing with Mark Morgan putting in a 1.34.34 to qualify 6th, an excellent effort.

Mark Hoble qualified 7th, in the only Morgan in the race, achieving a 1.35.09 in the +4 and alongside in 8th, Michael Scott had done a 1.35.17 in his Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica and I obtained the impression that they were both relishing a really close on track battle. Valerio Leone qualified only a little slower on 1.35.55 in the Elva Mk5 so he could well also feature to make it a 3 way battle. Glenn Tollett qualified 10th in 1.36.03, without Rory this time, but although the Austin Healey 100M was going pretty well, it was still suffering from water loss after a few laps, a problem that just doesn’t seem to go away and it was touch and go whether, even with a pit stop top up, the car would see the finishing line.

One second behind Glenn, in 11th place, Tristan Bradfield recorded a 1.37.05 in the Sunbeam Alpine Le Mans and alongside he had fellow Alpine driver, Gareth Evans on 1.37.57. quite possibly close enough to have given Tristan a hard time in the race.

Tim Stamper had the old Aston DB2/4, still in the process of repair/restoration, 13th, in a time of 1.37.71 but Tim doesn’t put too much effort into qualifying and usually goes a lot better in the races, so I think the pair of Alpines would have had their hands full of Aston, quite possibly seeing its rear end more than its front! It was good to see Ed Shah back on the grid and he had his Elva Courier Mk1 alongside Tim in 1.38.30. MGA engines dominated this part of the grid, since Ed’s Courier is MGA powered and behind him on row 8, we had a couple of very pretty MGA coupes in the hands of Martin Stowe and Shaun Bromley on 1.38.52 and 1.38.78 respectively, with the MGA Twin Cam of Nicola Burnside/Anthony Binnington behind on 1.39.33. I was delighted to see Shaun back, as he has supported FISCAR from the early days but other commitments have reduced his race entries in recent years so I’m hoping for increased participation!! The Twin Cam shared row 9 with the Triumph Italia of Jeremy Woods who reported that he had cured his starting/electrical problems from Silverstone with a new alternator. He recorded a time of 1.40.08

Stuart Sargeant’s Jaguar XK150 was on row 10 in a time of 1.40.35, and he shared it with Andrew Cox in the Triumph TR3 Falcon on 1.40.95, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if Andy had gone quicker in the race. Richard Frankel qualified the lovely pale blue Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint, 21st in a time of 1.42.98 with John Waterson’s Lotus Elite, 22nd on 1.43.44. Last but not least, and yes I have said that before but it really is a splendid and handsome road car, was the AC Aceca of George Passey. The car has a Ruddspeed Ford engine but not to the highest Ruddspeed spec and he uses it regularly on the road. A recent event abroad entailing much hill climbing revealed that first was too highly geared and it is likely that when the gearbox is next out 1st and 2nd gear ratios may be lowered. George’s time was 1.45.68.

Our day was marked by the usual friendly camaraderie amongst FISCAR members and supporters and this only faded away once we became aware of the unfolding tragedy. I again thank Richard Culverhouse, Richard Winchester and Jackie Williams for all their contributions on the day.

A good old fellow 10-tenther buddy of mine, ex club racer, now turned photographer, Peter Mallett, who I hadn’t seen for some years popped unexpectedly into the FISCAR HQ to say hello and we have him to thank for some bonus pictures. It would seem that he and Mick Walker were probably photographing within yards of one another, as you will note from the location, so that will explain some degree of duplication, but they are well worth displaying so I will be putting up our usual Gallery, albeit in reduced numbers as soon as possible.

Gallery

All the following photos are by Mick Walker, who provided a large number from qualifying. This is just a selection!

More to follow!