Starting HANDLE
Wayne Scott on opening the 2017 British Grand Prix in a TR2
My heart was pounding, mouth dry and a constant tingle of excitement was running through me. My mind was going over and over the few simple things that I really couldn’t mess up for the 28 Triumph TRS behind me and the millions of fans watching around the world. We were about to drive F1 superstars around Silverstone to officially open the 2017 British Grand Prix!
The meetings, negotiations, paperwork and nights stuffing passes into envelopes were suddenly forgotten. Along with everyone else I was savouring every second of it. I realise it is a cliché to talk about an atmosphere being electric, but right then, the enormity of this event was inescapable. As we formed up on white lines that would be arranging the Formula One cars just moments later, a massive roar engulfed us from the thousands of fans as the F1 stars filed out, found their stickered-up TRS and clambered in. A gaggle of photographers huddled around, shouting for us to look this way and that. I was driving TS2, the first right-hand drive Triumph TR built. To my left was the Jabbeke land speed record-breaking TR2 and behind, a grid full of TRS representing 30 years of the models, ending with a works rally TR8.
As we drove around the circuit, I could just catch glimpses of the gleaming mass of TRS on the trackside TV screens. At every bend in the circuit, the grandstands erupted with cheers and applause as the fans’ heroes came into view, with the biggest noise reserved, of course, for Lewis Hamilton. He went on to win the 2017 British Grand Prix and I’d like to think that the adoration he got while perched on the back of Ian Smith’s Triumph TR2 is what gave him the edge that day. But for me, and the members of the TR Register, it was a chance to experience F1 stardom in a unique moment that we will all remember for the rest of our lives.
‘We got to experience F1 stardom for ourselves’