Bentley Drivers' Club Silverstone 2001

It was a warm, autumnal morning as HUY and I dashed to the Bird in Hand to meet whoever would be there before half past nine. When we got there we were alone so investigated the slow clock and found a connector hanging off. So now HUY's clock keeps time again.

The now correct clock made me wonder if anyone else would turn up and then Sandra and David arrived in their 2000 Zetec engined 4/4 and shortly behind them Crispin who had done the organisation. As there was a breakaway group starting from High Wycombe there were just the three cars ready to go.

Crispin has an excellent route from Knowl Hill to Silverstone, via Henley and through the Chiltern hills on roads that are fast enough, but avoid any heavy traffic. We stopped for half an hour for coffee in a pub which turned out not to be open, but had managed to serve us like warm coffee anyway. Remind me to get Crispin to start a Guinea Pig website.

We arrived at Silverstone in time to miss the Bentley parade but in good time for the first race. The first of an excellent afternoons racing.

By now, if you are not in the know already, you probably wonder what the Bentley drivers club holds for a Morgan club? Well this is probably the premier Morgan race meeting in the calendar with a good variety of historic and other competition. Added to the advantage of seeing things like this in the flesh and on the track.

A real blower Bentley.. one of the ones built to run at Le Mans.. (click on a picture for a larger copy)

A walk around the paddock enabled us to see many examples of fine machinery and some Morgans as well.

Andrew Day's 3/8 litre Benley has its blower under cover so lacks the big Villiers shape sticking out of the front.	Tony Gott's 4.5 litre blower has the more traditional Villiers set up.
Not a blower in sight on the Bentley Speed 8. It didn't half go though...	Malcolm Paul's 4.6 litre Plus 8 stands alongside Libra's Aero 8 demonstrator

The race card includes a number of handicapped and scratch historic events, and handicapped and scratch all comers events and well as the Tony Morgan Tipp Trophy which is a Morgan only event.

The field for the handicapped and open events includes probably the fastest 3 Wheelers in the world in the shape of the methanol fuelled cars of Bill Tuer and Greg Bibby. I don't have a picture from the meeting, but click here for a picture taken at Copse from an earlier meeting. This gives a good impression of just how low they get and some of the rest of the field.

As well as the older cars, this meeting was graced by the presence of the third place car from this year's Le Mans 24 hour race. It didn't mix it with the others (no it wasn't afraid of the competition) but it did do a number of blistering demonstration laps; each of which took less time than it has taken me to type this paragraph.

Please accept my apologies for the quality of the picture, but the camera auto exposed for the headlights and electronically enhancing it does not improve the effect.

The following few photographs give some impression of the variety of the field as well as the keen competition. The penultimate handicap race was unfortunately red flagged twice and so abandoned. The first time when a Morgan stalled on the line and then when someone spun just ahead of the leaders and just where the field was bunching up. I still don't know how they all missed him, but they did.

Keith Ahlers in his way too fast Plus 8 had a very good day. In the last race he was exchanging the lead with the Cobra twice every lap. With the Cobra's 800cc advantage getting it ahead on the straight bits and Keith getting by through The Complex or under braking into Brooklands. At the end the Cobra got to the line first after Keith over cooked it a bit at Copse. There was also Tony Jones in a Ferrari 355 that looked as though it would be competitive but he lost 8 or 10 places when he spun from second at Brooklands on the first lap and could only make it back to third.

After an excellent day Sandra and David went on to Coventry (not sent by us!!) and Crispin and I headed back. We stopped for a "quick one" just short of Aylesbury and then went our own way.