KEY RACE SERIES AND CHAMPIONSHIPS
Austin Seven or Can-Am car, here’s where it can run
Edwardian, Vintage and more: Vintage Sports-Car Club
Far more than a competition club, but the Vintage Sports-Car Club promotes the best Vintage racing on the planet, plus hillclimb and trials series. Whatever the Vintage (pre-1931) car, from Austin Seven to aero-engined Edwardian, there’s a place for it along with selected ‘Post-Vintage Thoroughbreds’ from the 1930s. The VSCC hosts 1950s single-seater and sports car races at its meetings, too, plus – as part of its Speed Championship of sprints and hillclimbs – the best Vintage hillclimb anywhere, Prescott, on the first weekend in August every year. vscc.co.uk
‘Proper’ sports cars and GTs: Equipe GTS
Real gentleman driver stuff, this, and shortlisted for Race Series of the Year at the International Historic Motoring Awards in both 2016 and 2015. Says the Equipe GTS blurb: ‘Our aim is to provide a competitive yet gentlemanly, safe and friendly race series with a high standard of driving and car preparation.’ It’s for sports cars and GTs made up to the end of 1965 (but not Lotus Elans because they’re too good), in five classes from 1150cc to 2700cc running to Appendix K regs. FIA papers aren’t needed. The ten-event calendar includes a three-hour relay race plus a half-hour race at Donington on 14-15 July, and a double-header at Zandvoort in the Netherlands on 28-29 July. New for 2018 is a pre-’63 series along the same lines and at the same meetings. equipegts.com
Single-seaters to tin-tops: Historic Sports Car Club
The Historic Sports Car Club, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016, is the mainstay of UK historic car racing. It runs 16 championships and series, from single-seaters to tin-tops including the HSCC Derek Bell Trophy for F5000 and F2 cars running wings and slicks. There are also the ’70s Road Sports and Historic Road Sports series, where extra points can be won by driving your race car to the events, and the Super Touring Car Trophy for pre-2000 saloons as raced in the British Touring Car Championship’s most high-profile era. hscc.org.uk
Tip-top tin-tops: U2TC
‘No crashing, no cheating, no complaining.’ And absolutely no contact (on pain of getting thrown out of the club). Those are the promises and stipulations in the U2TC’s popular fourdate series for up to 2-litre FIA Pre-’66 touring cars, which includes the Spa Six Hours and a race in the Algarve Classic Festival. Memories of the legendary tin-top racing of the 1960s are stirred as Alfas and Lotus Cortinas battle it out with BMW Ti/SAs, along with plenty of Minis. historicmotor-racingnews.co.uk
Grand Prix greats: Historic Grand Prix Cars Association
The Historic Grand Prix Cars Association is where the cream of historic racing cars congregate: ‘A fast-moving history book,’ from Bugatti to Scarab. Members field around 300 cars between them, in multiple classes for front-engined cars, while rear-engined models are split into pre-’61 and pre-’66 grids. These appear at nine major historic meetings and festivals across Europe including the Spa Six Hours and the Silverstone Classic. hgpca.net
Gentleman’s expresses: Motor Racing Legends
Motor Racing Legends runs four series, mostly UK-based but also featuring in the Spa Six Hours and the Algarve Classic Festival. They are the RAC Woodcote Trophy (drum-braked sports cars), the Stirling Moss Trophy (pre-’61 sports cars and sports racers), Pre-War Sports Cars, and Historic Touring Car Challenge (pre’90 Group A, plus pre-’66 Group 5, and including the Tony Dron Trophy for Group 1 cars). It also organises the Le Mans Legends, run before the annual 24-hour race and featuring pre-’69 cars, and since 2017 it has managed the competition activities of AMOC (see below). motorracinglegends.com
Ancient to modern circuitry and sprints: Aston Martin Owners Club
AMOC has been organising races and sprints since World War Two, but racing activities are now run by Motor Racing Legends. The series are: the Aston Martin GT Challenge (modern GT4s); the Jack Fairman Cup for 1950s Sports Cars, which includes the Vredestein XK Challenge (so you get to see DBs and XKs racing wheel-to-wheel), running in conjunction with the Innes Ireland Cup for pre-’66 GT and touring cars; the Pre-War Team Challenge; and the popular AMOC Intermarque Championship. AMOC also fields entries in Equipe GTS races and their Equipe pre-’63 offshoot. amocracing.com
The most bums (sorry!) on the most seats: 750 Motor Club
It’s been the backbone of British club racing since ’39, when it was founded to promote the use of the Austin Seven in road and trials events. It currently runs 22 series, far removed from the original Seven idea and ranging from Stock Hatch and the Bikesports Championship to ‘Bernie’s V8s’, with specials and Sports/GTs. Whatever you race, 750MC can probably accommodate it – and on top of that, it runs the six-hour Birkett Relay race, this year on 27 October on Silverstone’s Historic GP circuit. In 2017 it introduced the Historic 750 Formula, to get retired 750 Formula cars – typically Austin or Reliant-powered – racing again. 750mc.co.uk
Prototype projectiles: Group C
Recreating the days when these 240mph flyers contested the World Sportscar Championship, and for 2018 the club is again racing in Europe with Peter Auto, organiser of the Tour Auto and more. Group C grids will be battling alongside Peter Auto’s Classic Endurance Racing Heritage Touring Cup, Sixties Endurance series and Trofeo Nastro Rosso for Italian sports and GTs up to 1966. After the season’s Spanish opener at Barcelona, events include the Spa Classic, the Grand Prix de l’Age d’Or, the Le Mans Classic, the Dix Mille Tours du Castellet and the Imola Classic. groupcracing.com
Can-Am to F1: Masters Historic Racing
Everything from tin-tops to downforce-era F1, via Gentleman Drivers (mini endurance races for pre-’66 GT cars) and FIA Masters Historic Sports Car Championship (GT40s, T70s and the like, up to 1974), have been joined this year by the new Masters Endurance Legends series for, yes, endurance racers originally competing between 1995 and 2012. These categories are spread among nine meetings in Europe taking in the UK, Italy, the Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France, including festivals and two Formula 1 meetings. Masters USA runs DFV-era F1 cars at four dates, and the season finishes with a historic Formula 1 double-header at Suzuka in Japan. mastershistoricracing.com
From midwife motors to MGBs: Historic Racing Drivers Club
Racing for the common motor, with overbored porridge sliding about on minimal grip. If you have a Vanguard or Auntie Rover, this is the place for you, in HRDC Touring Greats. HRDC Allstars caters for pre-’66 sports, GT and Touring cars, and the A-Series Challenge for those running small BMC power. There’s also the Coombs Heritage Challenge, for pre-’66 Jaguars of a type that ran in international events, and the TC63 for pre-’64 Touring Cars described as ‘non-homologation specials’. That means they’re fairly standard, and cars deemed to make winning too easy – Minis, Lotus Cortinas, Ford Galaxies – aren’t allowed. hrdc.eu
Racing stalwarts: MG Car Club
MGs have always raced, and the original club for MG owners, founded in 1930, currently runs ten series. These range from the long-standing BCV8 Championship and the MG Trophy, a onemake series for the front-drive ZR, to the Cockshoot Cup run by the club’s North West Centre. There’s also the Lackford Engineering Midget & Sprite Challenge, a national race series now in its 41st year. The Mary Harris and Kimber Trophies for Triple-M cars will again be highlights of the club’s pre-war activities. mgcc.co.uk
Pre-’66 aristocrats: GT & Sports Car Cup
For genuine pre-’66 GTs and pre-’63 sports cars of a type raced in the World Endurance Championship in period. On an invitation-only basis, the GT & Sports Car Club reunites original Jaguar E-type Lightweights, Ferrari 250 GTs, Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ2s, AC Cobras and Morgan Plus 4 SLRs. Two of the dates for 2018 have already passed, but still to come are the Autumn Classic at Castle Combe on 6 October and the Algarve Classic Festival in Portugal on 19-21 October. gtandsportscarcup.com
Big-bangers: Can-Am
Can-Am, for thundering, unlimited Group 7 sports racers, made a huge impact when it originally ran from 1966 to 1974. After some years of demo events, the Canadian-American Challenge Cup finally became a German-run historic series in 2016, 50 years after the formula’s inception. This year’s races are at the Bosch Hockenheim Historic (already run), the Historic Grand Prix at Zolder (26-27 May) and the Nürburgring Classic (15-17 June). canadian-american-challenge-cup.com
Where Stirling started: 500 single-seaters
The enthusiastic and knowledgeable 500 Owners Association preserves the singleseaters that were the genesis of modern Formula cars as we know them. These are split into three classes depending on age, plus an invitation class for V-twins and oddballs such as Panhard-DB-motored cars. There are four British dates plus Zandvoort, and a 13-round, two-class speed championship at venues including the UK’s best hillclimbs. 500race.org
Tin snails with spice: 2CV racing
As well as its 24-hour season-closer at Snetterton on 17-19 August, the Classic 2CV Racing Club Ltd runs four BARC-administered rounds across the UK, each with two races, while April’s season-opener at Donington also included a two-hour enduro as a practice run for the big one in August. If you’ve never seen a 2CV sideways on the grass, or an engine changed in eight minutes, prepare to be both amazed and amused. 2cvracing.org.uk