ORIGINALLY POSTED September 2014.
The grass was immaculately cut, the art-deco diner building looked like a set from Scorese’ THE AVIATOR , a row of identical aerobatic aircraft were lined up along the chestnut paling fence and suitably retro music blared from beneath the flashing neon sign atop the “Pilot’s Mess Pub” .
In the paddock a weird and wonderful selection of racing cars huddled in the half-light and barbecue smoke drifted among the camper vans and motor homes. It was Friday evening and the SYWELL CLASSIC ; PISTONS & PROPS was ready for take off on the morrow. What a strange event it was!
But not strange in a bad way. Just strange. From the giant inflatable bouncy-castle/slide/fun house for the youngsters to the lady parading round in the loosely kitted dress which was alarmingly transparent when backlit by the afternoon sun. From the gloriously over-the-top Plymouth Superbird in replica Richard Petty NASCAR livery to the pocket sized FIAT 127 drag racers which backed V8 engines under their exteriors.
There were strange sights among the trade stands too – a cute 1950s style pedal car hung like a convict from the hydraulic boom of a recovery truck ‘watched’ by a fully dressed shop window manikin reclining on the bed below and my neighbour’s pocket-sized Berkeley sports car which he spent as much time pushing back and forth from the club display area to his marquee as he did driving it.
In the air we had a WW1 dog-fight re-enactment and among the Fokker’s and Sopwiths, the triplane, biplanes and mono planes was , apparently a heavy-metal Rock God playing at being ‘The Red Baron’ for the day. We also had the eye watering sight of the Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane from the BATTLE OF BRITAIN MEMORIAL FLIGHT . The sound of 72 Rolls Royce pistons roaring away in 6 Merlin engines just cannot fail to stir the soul .
Out on the runway a selection of 70s two-stroke racing bikes blitzed back and forth at full revs without the need for silencers and on a short ad-hoc drag strip all manner of big V8 engined devices were being exercised energetically.
Then we had the spiders… of whatever they were. They looked like spiders, flew like ‘daddy long legs’ and infested every marquee, every car and more than a few hair-syles. I have no idea what there were but it took a long time to shake them all out of the marquee sheets while I was packing up!
I don’t think this, the second running of SYWELL was perhaps as well attended as last years debut event – there were tales of “thousands and thousands” of people in 2013 – but it was OK as events go. And as for venues, it’s very smart and very spacious so no complaints there .
