Other Events

I am planning to attend many events in 2008. Some of them will be car shows, some will be motor races and some might be something completely different, so keep watching for reports and pictures.

For all of my race dates and results for 2007 please click here Race Date & Results and I will update my 2008 races and dates.

Also, to read my reports and see my pictures of the events that I attended in 2006 and in 2007 please click here(2006) and here(2007).

2008 Events

Luton Festival of Transport - 8th June

Another great Festival and again highly recommended. The weather was fantastic (I'm writing this three days later and I still look like a lobster!!) and the cars and other vehicles were superb and a great mixture.

I was part of the Droop Snoot Group stand and we had some great cars on display; a Firenza rally car, Black Magic, a Droop Snoot, an HSR, a Firenza Sport, a flat front Firenza and a couple of four door Magnums and of course my race car!! We were next to the Viva Drivers Club too so there were also some lovely Viva GTs and some more normal Vivas too.

I had a wander round the stalls too and there were some great bargains to be had but nothing caught my eye this year round so I kept my hand in my pocket.

Below are some pictures of a few of the cars that caught my eye but there were a lot of cars on display so apologies if my interest isn't everyone elses.

1925 3 Litre Bentley

3 Litre Interior

1925 "Le Mans" Bentley

"Le Mans" Interior

Lovely C-Type Jaguar

C-Type Interior

Iconic Dodge Charger

Aston Martin DB5

Pretty little Lotus Elite

Beautiful Mach 1 Ford Mustang

Immaculate Mach1 engine

Nice Vauxhall Ventora

A posse of Rover SD1s

Nice Mk3 3.0S Ford Capri

Goodwood Festival of Speed, Friday - 11th July

Another well organised Festival and even the weather was good. The cars, as ever, were superb, a great mixture and loads to see but it was difficult to get clear pictures as there were so many people there but I did my best.

It took two and a half hours to get there, leaving at 8am, a lot of queing traffic once we left the A286 but as the tickets were free and I was being transported in luxury I can't really complain I suppose!!

This was only the thrid time I'd been to the Festival and I must admit to being totally spoilt before as I'd gone with Dad as General Motors VIP guests, so no queuing and parking actually at Goodwood House so I was quite surprised to see the field (especially the incline of the slope - please don't rain!!) that we had to park in. Luckily the rain did hold off and we escaped without incident but it did take three and a half hours to get home, blooming M25!!

There was the usual collection of fantastic cars and I especially enjoyed the Cartier selection and I must admit I kept away from most of the single-seaters just because there were so many people. I was surprised with the selection of Touring Cars to mark the BTCCs 50th anniversary as there were certainly a few that would not qualify for being ex-Touring cars and a few that have been very modifed since; surely there are proper original cars around??

I made it up the hill to see the rally stage and the older cars were superb, really being taken by the scruff of the neck by the drivers. Unfortunately I didn't make it to the rallycar paddock though so I'll save that for the next visit.

I had a wander round the stalls too and there were some great bargains to be had but nothing caught my eye this year round so I kept my hand in my pocket, well, I did buy a mdel Jaguar D-Type and Lola T70 MkIII but otherwise I was well behaved.

Below is a small selction of photos of a few of the cars that caught my eye. As per usual there were hundreds of cars there but these were the ones I liked and I've purposely not "fully" captioned them all due to some possibly having discrepancies so I hope you enjoy them.

2008 Le Mans Winning Audi R10

Audi still with winning grime attached

Lister Storm

Dougie Lampkin on the roof

Land Rover Sculpture

Further shot

Honda Fireblade

TT Bikes

Gorgeous 1948 Porsche 356 Cabriolet

Lovely "patina'd" 1949 Porsche 356 Coupe

Stunning 1967 Alfa Romeo Tipp 33 Stradale Prototipo

Striking 1974 Lancia Stratos HF Prototipo

1995 Ford GT90

1997 VW W12 Synchro Coupe

1999 18.3 Bugatti Chiron

Ferrari 250

Auto-Union

Mercedes Benz

Mercedes Benz Interior

Melin Rolls Royce Spitfire Engine

Napier-Railton

Caparo T1

Caparo T1

Caparo T1

Bentley

Bentley Interior

Rod Millen's Pikes Peak Toyota

Toyota Interior

Amazing "little" Shadow Mk1

Cramped Shadow Interior

"Phallic" Shadow Engine

Aggressive Lancia 037

Jaguar D-Type

Jaguar D-Type

Jaguar D-Type Interior

Alan "Mable" Minshaw in his BMW M3

Classics on the Common, Harpenden - 30th July

What a fantastic afternoon/evening, great weather and great cars. Apparently there were over 1,300 vehicles there with an estimated 10,000 visitors and it certainly felt like it!!

I had the afternoon off work to do a few little jobs on the Firenza and give it a clean and left home at 3:30pm to get there for 3:45pm but no such luck, lots of traffic!! I tried to be as careful as possible but the temperature gauge kept creeping and even after lengthy turn-offs it still went off the gauge...and kept going round!!

There was that ominous kettle-boiling sound but everything ran smoothly and I eventually got parked about 4:15pm in a cloud of steam and misted headlights (the Snoot headlight covers aren't great for an over-heating car!!). I opened the bonnet with some trepidation but luckily there wasn't too much hot boiling brown water, so I managed to clean it all up but there was still quite a few tide marks on the bodywork, which in the heat I couldn't get rid of; oh well, it's a race car, people won't notice!!

It was great that so many people came up and spoke to me about the car, racing and Dad, plus I got to meet a few people I'd only ever read about (a story for another time!!) but it did mean I didn't get to toalk to some people I wanted to or spend much time with others or get to see some of the other fantastic cars there. I did take some photos (below) and eventually got to go for a pint but I didn't fancy negotiating out of the field in the dark so left earlyish.

Unfortunately it seems the wated did get in the headlights as I could only get the sidelights to work but luckily no-one seemed to notice and I got to do the "wall of death" run out of the High Street and that was an experience!!

I managed to get home with no problems (even though it was now dark) and had a play with the headlight woring before putting the Firenza away and guess what, I got them working again, so all seems okay.

"Prince Henry" Vauxhall

Vauxhall Interior

Austin A35

Bond Bug

Lovely original Bentley

Interior

Quite a list of drivers

Cobra Interior

Great looking Quattro

Great Vauxhall

Nice little Sprite

Fantastic Camaro

"Silk Cut Jag"

Beautiful Porsche 356

Smart Camaro

Finally and most importantly....