The CSCC (and a few others) selective calendar is as follows -
Some CSCC meetings are 2 day events but the calendar shows the day we are
racing.
See the notes column for latest on our likelihood of competing
| 2020 Race & other dates and results | ||||||||
| # | Date | Venue / Event |
Club & Series |
Car | Result o/a | Class result | Weather/comment | Results |
| 23 -24 Feb | Stoneleigh Park | Race Retro Show | n/a | |||||
| 18 March | Snetterton 300 | CSCC test day | Grantura | Great work | ||||
| 21 March | Goodwood | Motor Sport magazine track day | Lotus Elan | Cancelled | ||||
| 28 March | Snetterton 300 |
CSCC
Swingers CSCC Classic K |
Tuscan Grantura |
Cancelled | ||||
| 19 April | Cadwell Park |
CSCC
Swingers CSCC Classic K |
Tuscan Grantura |
Cancelled | ||||
| 1 - 3 May | Donington | GT&SCC | Lotus Elan | Postponed (Cancelled) | ||||
| 9 May | Brands Hatch Indy |
CSCC
Swingers CSCC Classic K |
Tuscan Grantura |
Cancelled | ||||
| 23 & 25 May | Oulton Park |
CSCC
Swingers CSCC Classic K |
Tuscan Grantura |
Cancelled | ||||
| 6 7 June | Thruxton | GT&SCC | Lotus Elan | Cancelled | ||||
| 25 - 28 June | Spa Francorchamps Summer Classic | Roadbook / CSCC Classics and/or Spa 3 Hours | Lotus Elan | Cancelled | ||||
| 1 | 26 July | Thruxton |
CSCC
Swingers CSCC Classic K |
Tuscan Grantura |
2nd 9th |
2nd 1st |
Great racing but no spectators. Dry practice, dry to wet in race |
Swingers result Classic K result |
| 2 | 15 August | Snetterton 300 | CSCC Classic K | Grantura | 6th | 1st | Dry practice, dry to wet in race |
Classic K result Classic K book |
| 22 August | Silverstone National | CSCC Swingers | Tuscan | Cancelled | ||||
| 3 | 27 September | Donington |
CSCC
Swingers CSCC Classic K |
Tuscan | 5th dnf |
4th dnf |
Cool and dry, live streamed |
Swingers result Swingers book Classic K result Classic K book |
| 3 4 October | Castle Combe | GT&SCC | Lotus Elan | Not racing | ||||
| 16 - 18 October | Le Mans, France |
CSCC
Classic Motors Cup |
Lotus Elan | Entered but now postponed to 2022 |
||||
| 4 | 24 October | Castle Combe |
CSCC
Swingers CSCC Classic K |
Tuscan Grantura |
5th 8th |
2nd 1st |
Very overcast, wet and windy |
Swingers book Classic K book |
| 5 | 1 November | Mallory Park | CSCC Swingers | Tuscan | 3rd | 2nd | Overcast dry to damp |
Swingers result Swingers book |
| 6 7 8 November | Portimao | GT&SCC | Lotus Elan | Not racing | ||||
CSCC Swinging Sixties Group 2 class structure for 2020
Class ? - All 6 cylinder cars up to 3000cc (Triumph GT6)
Three of the Wolfitt Racing team cars out in the February
2020 sunshine but not socially distancing
Roger's MG Magnette ZA converted to front disc brakes, wow what an improvement!
Want yours done?
Incredible that we even got to race in the year of the global pandemic. Covid-19 has decimated everyone's early sporting calendar but when the metaphoric garage doors were opened to racing pretty much the whole Classic Sports cCar Club turned out to support. There we some expected restrictions such as only one crew/pal per car and all the admin was done by self declaration; so no signing on, no scrutineering etc. and limited people in the pit lane and on the pit wall. I think, however, it went well and everyone appreciated the effort the club had gone to.
With so little track time this year Dave and I decided on taking advantage of the official test day on Friday and booked a number of sessions just to get back in the swing of things. We wanted to make sure our Blackpool duo would perform acceptably well and also give a good show (to no spectators other than the few that gathered on the balcony of the WW2 airfield control tower just outside the circuit gates) on the Sunday. Both cars were good but we made a good attempt to improve the Tuscan by adjusting the front shock absorber bump stop pre-load; this was done by inserting additional bump stop spacer shims - except we didn't have enough with us. Two hours on Saturday afternoon (the down day for us because testing was Friday and racing on Sunday) was spent making spacers from a previously perfectly serviceable plastic petrol can; they worked fine but might not pass close concours inspection!
We were happy to be posting similar in lap times as our last visit to Thruxton which was the previous September but oddly only three race meetings ago!
When Sunday Comes The weather was warm, breezy and dry and Swinging Sixties was out on track first with Dave doing his normal Tuscan V8 warm-up and, as it turned out, quickest lap of our qualifying session. We were up an down the top times but finally finished in 3rd just behind our long-time rivals Jamie Keevill (Elan) and Ray Barrow (Camaro) but well clear of everyone else. It was a huge entry with 43 cars completing the 30 minute qualifying session for the combined Group 1 and Group 2 race and it was largely uneventful for us but we were able to practice the super-slow covidised pit stop change over!
Classic K qually was later in the morning and the other way round with me taking the fastest lap and getting us to 13th on the grid and, importantly, quickest in our class which is always a nice place to start.
Swingers race Starting from 3rd on the grid is always nice; no front row pressure but with one of the fastest launching cars in the club a standing start is always fun...except...I gridded up about 30cm too far forward in the box and rather than being asked to move back (which is normally what happens) I was allowed to start from there and we then got awarded a 10 second penalty! Anyhow, I had a pretty good start but a bit too much wheel spin and Ray moved across slightly in front of me stopping me blitzing past Jamie so I slotted into 2nd place. Ray squeezed past on lap 2 but all three of us kept the pace up for about 8 laps with only 3 seconds covering us while we opened out a substantial gap behind to 4th but it wasn't easy to maintain that speed. We led laps 13 and 14 while Ray and Jamie dropped in their mandatory pit stops and we rejoined a bit too far back and with second driver problem of needing a lap or to get up to speed meant we dropped off the top 2 but kept well ahead of 4th. The situation suddenly got much more complex for Dave at the rain showers arrived and left the track very wet at the far side of the circuit. Lap times for everyone dropped off a cliff and whilst we were sitting happy with 3rd, we unexpectedly inherited 2nd place when Jamie (under pressure from Ray) on the last lap of the race chucked the Elan into a grassy field when lapping a couple of Minis fighting for position further down the race. That gave us a comfortable 2nd place overall and 2nd in class despite the 10 second penalty being applied to our time. Because it's a class based series there are no awards for 2nd overall, but we did later (at Snetterton) collect a pair of 2nd in class trophies.
Swingers was pretty full click here
Post race we noticed the engine was making overly noisy clicking at the top end so we stripped it down to find...nothing wrong...so we put it back together again and it sounds great again. I think it might have simply been a loose exhaust manifold.
Classic K race An altogether more entertaining race with much more overtaking to concentrate the mind. Dave took the 13th grid slot start on the now fully dry track but didn't have a great start, there were a huge number of similarly quick cars around us. Dave had a tough time keeping the speed up and came in half way in about 24th overall place and 3rd in class amidst the mass of cars stopping for the pit stop. We did a reasonable turn around under he new 2 minute pit stop rule and I rejoined in 2nd in class but with Joe Ward in the other Grantura not too far behind but Luke Wos in the Ford based Turner quite a way ahead. I decided we did need a trophy so was on a mission to catch Luke, I knew it would be tough because although I had been quicker than him in Qualifying it wasn't by much and I'd need an error free drive to make up at least 10 places and catch him. Gradually I made my way up the field with a few brave and few opportunistic overtakes but with 3 laps to go was on his tail and got past him on the brakes into the chicane with 2 laps to go. Half a lap later he got past me at Noble so I tried to out brake him again at the chicane but was blocked by an Elan that was lapping us. That left just the last lap to try again and I got past him coming through Church with the car as loose as heck but I just got by and managed to stay ahead through the chicane and just beat him over the line by 9/100th of a second to take the Class win and 9th overall. Definitely one of my best and most enjoyable drives ever.
2020 Thruxton - Jon and Stack at ease in the team easy-up shelter
(and it actually is alcohol free beer!!)
See the video of the last few laps here Classic K Video
From Thruxton being a circuit we rarely raced at just a few years ago it's now one of my favourite places with its high speeds and great overtaking opportunities and it's an old WW2 airfield and is still active for popular flying. It's a great place even with no spectators.
Classic K only for this meeting.
2020
Snetterton - Jon in the Grantura during the
qualifying session
Photo: Lewis Perry
Thruxton 2020 was one of the most memorable race meetings, only to be followed by Snetterton which was, alas, pretty dull even though we gained a class win; its place in my mind however will be consigned to the dustbin of unmemorability if such a thing exists and, if it does, I have forgotten where it is because it’s full of dull tat.
Anyway we won the Class after qualifying strongly in 6th and...err...finishing 6th after a monumentally uneventful race. I am pretty sure we saw some other cars and saw quite a few people retire. In fact we lost our main rivals after only 20 minutes when the Luke Wos Turner retired with an overheated engine and the Seldon/Butcher BMW TISA with a broken throttle linkage.
2020 Snetterton - early in the CSCC Classic K race. Grantura,
Elan and BMW TISA
Photo: John Landamore
In fact it wasn’t quite that bad. We lost a few places on the first couple of laps following a good rolling start but regained all of them bar one over the next 55 minutes as pit stops unfolded and a few cars retired. It rained for the final 10 minutes and I really didn’t like that bit as the track became incredibly slippery almost instantaneously. The final twist was that Neil Howe (TR4) who beat us on the road, though miscalculation pitted out of window and had a 2 lap penalty applied later which elevated us to 6th overall.
Notably we were actually very lucky with the weather, the Sunday races were hugely affected by torrential rain with only one race being completed before lunch and then rain stopped play for the rest of the weekend.
2020 Snetterton - Nice to see Baby Bertha out on the Saturday, spent an
hour or so helping fix the steering after qualifying...
Donington was yet another meeting of good and bad outcomes. We dragged both TVRs out of their cosy workshop homes and hauled them up to the fabulous, historic Leicestershire circuit hoping for decent results especially given that the event was being live streamed on Facebook and YouTube.
As is often the way with any form of motor sport, plans and intentions often don't translate into reality and we had a troubled day with some great racing but some serious mechanical challenges.
2020 Donington - The Tuscan and Grantura before we
broke them both...
In the Swinging Sixties race (the white Tuscan V8) we had experienced a drop in power at Thruxton and had done a partial engine strip down and rebuild in the period after that race which had included removal and replacement of the intake manifold. On a modified small block Ford V8 engine the ends of the valley are not sealed with a gasket but with a wall of silicone RTV onto which the manifold is pressed. Unfortunately the rear wall had not sealed properly and it failed after just 3 laps of practice; probably because it wasn't aligned properly or, more likely, it wasn't good enough quality RTV. From now on I will only be using RTV from companies such as Dow Corning or Loctite! The upshot was that Dave (who was out in the car) only completed 3 smoky laps and came in before he was black flagged however that was enough for us to qualify but placed us in position 38 of 38 cars in the race. We had made a few minor suspension changes for this race so were not able to tell if they had helped, the race would have to be the test. Back in the paddock the team (Martin and Jared this time) had the manifold off very quickly and were sorting it all out while Dave and I got ready to qualify the blue Grantura in the Classic K historic race.
Donington 2020 The Tuscan awaiting its massive intake manifold oil leak...
Classic K qualifying was really good although the Luke Wos driven Turner we beat a few weeks ago at Thruxton was flying and disappeared into the distance - we need to find some more pace - but we were happy to qualify in the middle of the starting grid for the one hour race.
You can see the start of the Swinging Sixties race from my VBox camera on YouTube; it's not High Definition but does show speeds and the G meter and shows me making up a lot of places as well as having a minor coming together with a Series 1 Jaguar XJ6 on the first lap that deranged the driver's side door mirror. I came in for the pit stop at about 22 minutes, in 3rd place just as the safety car was deployed, this really helped and probably elevated us a few places because a few cars that had been in front of us had already pitted and were therefore held up by slow train of cars. Dave did his best to keep ahead of them but they were lapping a lot quicker and we finished 5th overall which was a great result given where we started. Subsequent to the race finish 10 cars were penalised 30 seconds for pit stops taking under 2 minutes because they mistook the pit entry line which is always marked with a 60 marker to denote the km/h speed limit. Nigel Reuben lost his win but we stayed in 5th.
In car VBox camera from the start of the race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POQlnX-AQ2I&t=546s
Live stream of Sunday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Id6tRgM8_c&t=8866s
The Classic K race was less successful with Dave sliding to a halt after just 9 laps when the nearside front vertical link snapped. It's a real weak point on these early cars but under the FIA rules you are not allowed to uprate it. It's a very early style Triumph Herald vertical link and trunnion with a Triumph TR4 stub axle and hub. Luckily it was on a part of the track where he avoided any barriers and nobody else was involved.
2020 Donington - Dave sliding the Grantura to a halt
mid-Classic K race with broken nearside vertical link
So overall the event was great, lots of fun but also lots of issues with the cars and with pit stop window confusion in Classic K caused by the club accidentally starting too many cars (41) which contravened circuit limits meaning the race was red flagged after 10 minutes. This meant nobody really knew when the pit stop window was but as it turned out, it didn't affect us!
Next stop, the super-bumpy Castle Combe in Wiltshire.
After the challenges of Donington we were really excited about getting out again and having another go at breaking the cars! We had fixed the vertical link on the Grantura and decided that we really do have to life those components (we know that the FIA Griffiths typically have a new pair fitted every couple of races) to try to avoid that happening again. Failing to finish a race really is one of the biggest disappointments in racing and we always recommend newcomers to build for general reliability first and speed later.
This was CSCC's last minute Le Mans replacement meeting and whilst it didn't feel very French and the weather was dreadful, it was still great to be out again and with the venerable old RV running again it was like getting the band back together again. Roger couldn't make this one partly because of the social distancing challenges and the chuckle brothers crew camped in the trailer on the Friday night. The circuit had allowed a handful of spectators for this event, limited to being around Quarry corner, and it was nice to see so many had braved the rain and wind.
Race day saw light rain all day although with a reasonably grippy track; the Grantura was out first and we slithered our way to 17th on the grid but way off the pace of our main class rival, the ever-improving Luke Wos in the tiny Turner Mk2. The Grantura felt really good on the soaking wet surface and we made just a few changes to suspension setup for the race and also put new M Section tyres on the rear. Those tiny changes made a huge difference. Dave had a great start and was up into the top 10 by the pit stop and it was my job to keep us in class 2nd while looking for opportunities to improve our overall position. I had a great race with a few cars but on the final lap Luke had a relatively minor spin and was hit by a Lotus Cortina which took a rear wheel off; he was out. Although he was over a lap ahead he was not classified (you have to actually pass the chequered flag to be counted as completing the race) and we were handed the Class win and 8th overall. Years ago Luke would have still been awarded the class win because he was over a lap ahead but that rule changed after some embarassing debacles in F1 and Le Mans where cars in the pits were placed in races. Nice for us to win again even if not an ideal situation.
Swinging Sixties was a bigger challenge because Ollie Reuben was so quick and proved to be unstoppable in the rain, winning with a pretty impressive margin. We had a great race and there were incidents everywhere but we came through from 8th on the grid to 5th overall after a strong start; we were happy with that despite 4th being likely as the track was drying and we just beaten to the line by Dave Roberts in a Datsun 240Z as our Dave closed in. Notably, we were seriously hampered by a misted up screen and could hardly see a thing; as a result a heated unit is going in before the next meeting!
Race start in car camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4t80hdtsbk
Full race rear camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDTrv3BuLDQ&t=995s
Recorded live stream of the entire meeting (with really good commentary and lots of coverage of us): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FtmeVgamRQ
The only real negative of the meeting is the continuing woeful condition of the circuit paddock and some of the facilities there. It needs a bit of MSV / Jonathan Palmer treatment I'm afraid and really needs new toilets, a wider paddock entry/exit gate and much better hard standing.
2020 Wolfitt Workshop Dave and Stack fitting the new heated windscreen
following the overly opaque views of Castle Combe
A surprisingly good race season after we truly expected there would be no racing at all in 2020. Ultimately we did 5 meetings this year with 8 races (with just 1 dnf) and were pretty happy with the overall results whilst always wanting to do better. Nothing for the Lotus Elan this year other than a track day which went quite badly and the less said about that the better.
The Mallory Park meeting was unusually late in the year but with the RV properly in service again it wasn't too bad even though the weekend was windy, overcast and slightly damp. We were, however, delighted to be joined, over in the spectator area, by a group from the Blackpool Thunder TVR club and it was great to line up on the race grid and see all the matching caps and smiling faces!
Earlier Dave took the Tuscan out for qually first and managed to get us to about 8th on the grid before we swapped over and I was able to get us up to pole position only to be pipped by Dave Roberts in his Datsun 240Z towards the end of the session, but very happy to qualify on the front row of the grid. Dave did have quite a moment on the start/finish straight during qually and we could easily have been taking the car home in a box! I was aided by a drying track and the car was very well behaved despite its rather tired front shock absorbers which really do need a rebuild after many years of loyal service.
2020 Mallory Park The Tuscan
in a briefly sunny period pre race.
The race was rather more exciting although a few spells of dull circulation (whole race click here) and I managed to get past the 240Z but was well off the pace of the Reuben/Reuben TVR Griffith. I had a great multi-lap battle with Jamie Keevill in his mighty little Lotus Elan and was briefly in the lead when the Reuben car made its pit stop. I handed over to Dave at about 22 minutes just as a short spell of light rain slowed everyone down for 5 minutes then as the track dried out, the Roberts 240Z was able to get by Dave into 2nd place. We finished 3rd overall and 2nd in Class V which was a pretty decent result and I am already planning a few upgrades for 2021. It was a really great end to the 2020 races and we all hope that the Covid situation allows us to do it all again next year with a bit more mingling with the spectators allowed and more races throughout the year; we all really missed Spa this summer!
2020 Mallory Park Dave being optimistic about our chances
in the race to come with Stack looking suitably convinced