GETTING READY TO WRITE A NEW CHAPTER IN UK RACING HISTORY
There will be some drivers looking at the start of the new national racing season with some trepidation. The old mantra is right: you are only as good as your last race and those drivers who were successful at the end of 2023 have held on to the bragging rights for a good few months. But that is all about to change as the UK club racing scene swings into action once more. Silverstone next weekend will host the curtain-raiser with a good, solid club meeting on the International circuit layout. That is the tip of an iceberg which will then progress through another 190 other events before it concludes at Mallory Park on Boxing Day.
That means there is plenty of choice and, painfully, there will be some clashes too. It also means the National Racing Calendar is a vital tool to make sure that the season can be properly mapped out.
While there are almost 200 meetings, there are a similar number of championships. While that might be lauded as a reflection as a strong statement on the health of UK racing, there is also a necessity for caution here. More contests doesn’t necessarily mean packed-out grids. While this situation will always settle at its own level (mostly due to financial realities), there perhaps needs to be more prudence in granting permits.
In this UK racing special, Graham Keilloh lifts the lid on a new initiative to refocus the attention of young karters of the benefit of beginning a career in Formula Ford 1600. When the national racing landscape was different, FF1600 was the traditional stepping off point but there are so many more options now. Formula Ford does offer something that most other junior single-seater categories don’t, though, and that is the engineering freedom that doesn’t feature in a one-make category. Formula Ford teaches everything a rising star needs to know about racecraft, but it also adds in an underpinning of set-up nous that is hard to gain elsewhere.
One man who knows that only too well is design guru and still a keen national racer Adrian Reynard. The 73-year-old is the man who has pulled up a seat for the Motorsport News readers’ questions this week and he can reflect on a career that revolutionised the lower ranks of junior single-seater racing before taking him into the Formula 1 paddock. His answers are fascinating. The interview begins on page 30.
We also speak to the track chiefs who are responsible for making sure that the venues we all know and love are kept up to spec for the year’s action ahead. The workload for the men and women in the background is perhaps harder once a season ends than it is during a busy year. Only when the engines have been switched off can they get down to the housework that is required to make sure their activities run smoothly and, most importantly of all, profitably. The feature begins on page 36.