Under alternate blistering sunshine and blasting hailstones , Shelsley Walsh’s two day mid summer (July 5/6th) event featured a nice mixed bag of ‘moderns’ on a very quiet Saturday and all manner of exotic Vintage machines on a much busier “Pre-War meeting” on the Sunday
We enjoyed a successful book-signing session on our stand by well known lady racer/adventurer Joy Rainey, promoting her new book JOY ACROSS AMERICA.
The book recounts Joy’s trip from California to Florida last year in her 1904 Oldsmobile and that same car will be celebrating it’s 110th birthday next month by crossing Australia from Adelaide to Darwin.
Saturday not only featured cars but also a big selection of two- and three wheelers
The pre-war record was broken by an ERA (appropriately) with James Baxter (below ) getting up the 1000 yard hill in 33 seconds – about 4 seconds faster than the legendary founder of ERA. Raymond Mays managed 60 years ago…but it has to be admitted the track surface is a bit better these days, as are the tyres!
If ERAs were not exotic enough there was also a jaw-dropping Maserati (above) on hand.
Of course vintage racing cars do come in all sizes and for the very smallest you could have a choice that Henry Ford would have disapproved of… red or blue! And you get a great close up view of everything, even sat on a bookstall…
A long weekend, and surprisingly low key on Saturday evening with the bar closing around 7 and very few people milling around in the usual manner – almost to a worrying degree in fact. It was almost deserted until 7am on Sunday! The noisiest thing around were the infernal wood pigeons who never seemed to stop calling and flapping in the hedge rows!
However everything fell into place despite a few hefty downpours. But this is England in July after all, what do you expect?
