
Beautiful low drag Jaguar E Type sporting the colours of Ukraine
The weekend of May 28th saw the 16th running of the Masters Historic Festival at Brands. It’s an easy journey for us down the M11 and with my son offering to drive and even one of my daughters, Daisy, coming along it was going to be a day to enjoy. Masters seem to be continually updating their eligibility criteria, catering for ever more modern racing cars so weren’t going to be watching any vintage machinery but we would see Formula 1 cars from the 1980s and ’90s and endurance racers that were no more than six years old.

Winning Lola T70 of Hadfield and Voyazides

Beautiful Fiat Dino parked outside the hospitality tent
It’s the Masters Sports Car Legends that always provide the greatest entertainment for me. The rumbling V8 Lola T70s with their 5.7 litres of Chevrolet power are just awe inspiring. Similarly the Chevron B8s with 2 litres of BMW power are mightily impressive with their giant killing capabilities. The race didn’t disappoint with Simon Hadfield and Leo Voyazides returning to their pre pandemic race winning form in their Lola T70 MK3B. Stephen Nuttall’s B8 was nudged off by Christian Pittard’s sister car in front of us at Druid’s Bend but both quickly recovered. Unfortunately Nikolaus Ditting’s gorgeous T70 in dark green that was being co driven by Sam Hancock came to grief just minutes before the end with gearbox problems.

Austin Healey 100 was just one of the cars in the enormous 46 car grid for the Equipe Libre race
There was a ‘heart in mouth’ moment during qualifying for the Equipe Libre race when Samuel Ashby inverted his Austin Sprite. Instantly red flagged the marshals and ambulance were on the scene but it was quite some time before we thankfully saw Sam emerge. It was only Sam’s third race and his father was watching but Sam and the car arrived in the collecting area for the last race remarkably intact. The Equipe Libre grid was a splendid mix of MGs, Austin Healeys, Lotus 26Rs and Elevens, Morgans and an Alfa and E Type. It was the brute power though of the TVR Griffith that took the top spot on the podium. There were 46 cars on the grid which means that Equipe Classic team are certainly getting it right.

Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato. One sold for £7.5 million recently.

Trabant was part of the ‘Youngtimers’ grid. Prices of Trabants are hard to find…
The Formula 1 cars of the 1980s and ’90s provided terrific entertainment. Miles Griffiths, whom I’m used to seeing race much older cars, seemed to have it all sown up with a massive lead. The ‘Jam Baron’ Steve Hartley had other ideas and powered his McLaren from the back, overtaking the whole field to take the win.
Car clubs were out in force and the historic racing simulator, where you could power your own Cobra around Brands, was in constant use. It really was a family event and a return to the atmosphere of the pre pandemic meetings.
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