ORIGINALLY POSTED 8 October 2015
Loton Park in September. One of the nicer events on the calendar to be among vintage cars. The well populated paddock is overlooked by the gatehouse of Loton Hall. Up the hill camper vans and tents nestle among the swathes of bracken with a panoramic view across the vale to Shrewsbury. There’s a compact bar and a large terrace of tables and chairs from which to watch the sunset and empty the odd glass while the aroma of hog roast and barbecue drifts. And there is some motor sport too of course. Not the high profile, big-name, well sponsored type that usually occurs the same weekend each year down on the Goodwood estate on the South Coast .
Loton is very much for grass-roots enthusiasts. It’s all very real and there are few if any examples of the fancy dress that Lord March likes to decorate his circuit environs with. There are no ERAs or Maseratis and only one Bugatti, because of the date clash, but the entry still bursts with interesting and exotic machinery , as does the car park!
On the Saturday evening with practice over nice and early, most of the entries still sat in the paddock and most of the drivers, helpers and officials congregating near the bar the bellow of a straight 8 racing engine car be heard approaching, it’s a genuine 1921 Grand Prix Sunbeam which although not competing has been brought along to add to the flavour of the meeting. It parks up near the hog roast and the bonnet is carefully flipped open to reveal the huge shining sculpture beneath.
Very quickly the bar empties and the car is surrounded by prying eyes and nodding heads. It’s a magnificent sight. The star of the show. Which is saying something when Chris Williams is present with the 24 Litre Napier-Bentley and Mark Walker has arrived on the road in the 1905 Darraq V8 Land Speed Record car !
The Sunbeam went to New Zealand not long after Jean Chassagne drove it on the 1922 RAC TT on the Isle of Man and it seems to have stayed there for three quarters of a century before returning to the land of it’s construction not many years back for a lengthy and meticulous restoration. It was parked opposite my bookstall for a couple of hours before bellowing it’s way back to the paddock as darkness started to fall.
Sunday dawned fine and clear – unlike the previous day when it rained bucket loads for the first two hours. The action on track was terriffic. The Napier-Bentley did it’s familiar and popular ‘laying smoke’ trick, burning up the inside rear tyre out of ever sharp corner. Hughie Walker threw the thumping V Twin GN THUNDERBUG around with great abandon despite the car having no front brakes to retard the huge torque of it’s 4.3 lite engine.
Perhaps the commentary had best go without…comment. Apart from my doubts that the same team will be in action next year… That aside, it was a very nice way to end the Vintage hillclimb season. If you have never been to Loton, you have missed a treat.
My thanks to Nimmy & Jon Mellor for their culinary hospitality on Friday evening and to the Barker brothers for the hog roast – also to Erez Yardeni for bringing along the Sunbeam.
