John Pace MGB GT - The Sir Jackie Stewart Classic Sprint
Club member John Pace entered the sprint at the Thirlestane event; here he recounts his experiences of the weekend. (Note that due to website file size limitations, the original high resolution video has been compressed.)
Sir Jackie Stewart Classic, Race Against Dementia - June 18/19 2022, Thirlestane Castle, Lauder.
Well that’s that done, pretty sure I won’t be hearing back from them, were my thoughts in March as I completed an on-line entry for the Sprint event. How wrong was that!
The first running of the Sprint at Thirlestane highlighting Sir Jackie’s racing career and also to raise awareness and funds for research into a cure for dementia linked in with the Borders Vintage Automobile Club’s annual show sounded really interesting as well as giving me the opportunity to use my new (to me) trailer for the first time to take the MGB to an event. If I could get to the Borders and back I reckoned I could probably get anywhere!
So, my entry was accepted, 50 cars for the Sprint, over 100 applied, still don’t know how I made it. When the entry list came through the range of cars and drivers was quite something and I have to say I was rather feeling out of my depth. However, nothing ventured nothing gained and with everything packed for the weekend I set off on Friday following the detailed instructions of arrival route and parking in the Castle grounds. The traffic round Edinburgh was fairly full on but we made it and off loaded car to its paddock garage and parked up trailer and car for the weekend. With the B and my race stuff all successfully passing scrutineering I had the opportunity to wander round a bit, have a look at the static F1 displays and other cars, take in the final preparations as more cars and equipment arrived and walk down the track.
Saturday started with drivers briefing with the main point being that it was a show, some of the cars were not being timed and doing Demonstration runs. The other main point was really heavy braking at the finish so as to not take out the Red Bull F1 display which was positioned on the gravel drive in front of the castle. The runs were being done in batches of about 12 cars, I was in batch 1 of the 4, and we all followed the course car down the track to the start. That gave opportunity to assess the track, narrow and bumpy, and also take in the crowds that were literally pouring into the place. Some chicanes had been positioned for the sprint cars (removed for the F1 displays) so the first practice run was just to get a feel for everything with the next 2 counting as timed runs for the competition. Sunday followed the same format with everyone’s time coming down, once it was discovered that some of the chicanes could almost be straightlined!
The variety of cars competing was wide and varied, for example in my batch was Jaguar E type, Ferrari 308, Austin Healy Sprite, Vauxhall Nova, DeTomaso Pantera GT4, Rover SD1 Vitesse, Tiga SC80 Sports 200, Corvette Stingray, Supercharged 999 Mini Cooper S and Ford Escort Twin Cam. Some others were, XK120, Lola Mk1, TVR Grantura, V12 Lagonda, Jaguar C-type, 1951 Bentley, 1926 Fraser Nash, 1950 Cooper, Bugatti T35B, Ecurie Ecosse, Ecurie Imp, 1959 Tec Mec Maserati, 1952 Cooper Bristol, Vauxhall Chevette HSR, BTCC Vauxhall Vectra (John Cleland) and two of the current touring cars, Moffat and Paterson.
I had no expectations of times for my runs, only to hopefully not finish last, which I didn’t and at the end of the day found myself between Darren McWhirter in a 1954 Lagonda V12 and John Clark in a Jaguar E type, so I thought that wasn’t too shabby. Fastest time went to Garry Dickson in the ex-works Chevette, Audi S3 second, Healy Sprite third and Malcolm Milne in the modified Nova fourth.
There was so much to see and do between the displays on track, the trade stands, car clubs, cars, food outlets and retail opportunities that having to keep an eye on when we were competing meant my time to get around was a bit limited so never really had time to explore properly.
As competitors we were well looked after with a Drivers Lounge, where the food and coffee just kept on coming, next to the VIP Marquee and adjacent to the paddock area. This whole section had a very limited access for general admission and was much quieter than the other crowded areas. Personally I missed having people passing by taking photos, asking questions, looking at the cars so I hope that could be addressed in the future.
Future, yes, I believe it will run again for another few years so if you couldn’t make it this time, maybe next year.
The Sprint was very much a trial event with none of the single seaters being timed and hopefully a smoother surface and more accurate timing, so if I have an entry accepted I’ll be back, maybe two camp beds Irene?
