Williams

Some more of the competitors in the Thoroughbred Grand Prix Championship race at Donington Park at the SeeRed meeting in September 2006, this time a couple of the Williams cars.

This is the 1982 Williams FW08/3 entered by RJM Motorsport

Here's the car at Redgate Corner being driven by Richard Eyre during a practice session

This 1981 Williams FW07C/14 was entered by Colin Bennett Racing and is again seen at Redgate Corner during the practice session, this car being driven by Peter Sowerby.

'Except for access'

What do the words 'Except for access' mean when you see them on a sign at the side of the road? Here is a photograph of a street in Hyde with a signpost with those words on it:

Below is a close-up of the sign

Now to me the 'No vehicles Except for access' means that vehicles are only allowed to pass this sign if they are making a delivery to any premises within the prohibited zone, which is shown on the Google earth picture below:

The sign shown above is on Hamnett Street, just to the right of centre, and the prohibited zone is the red-brick part of the road which loops round onto Market Place and then back again onto John Street, to the left of centre. The parts of Market Place to the right and left of the red-brick zone are fully pedestrianised.

This is a photograph taken looking along Market Place and shows a van which is (apparently) making a delivery to one of the shops and which the sign allows it to do. But it seems that a large number of motorists car drivers think that the restriction shouldn't apply to them either.

Here are three more photographs:

Not all the photographs above were taken on the same day, but the last three were and in such quick succession that my camera records all three to have been taken at 11:34am. The black car in the first photograph dropped off a passenger who seems to have gone into the Farmfoods shop whilst the driver sat waiting in the car. The taxi in the second photograph dropped off two young ladies who sauntered across the road and possibly into the shopping mall behind the shops on the right. The car in the third photograph also stopped to drop off passengers but I didn't see where they went. It strikes me that the kind of person who ignores these 'no access' signs is the same person who doesn't see a double yellow line as meaning 'no parking at any time' but that 'this stretch of road is reserved exclusively for you to park on'.

Friday's Ferrari

This is a car photographed at the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992 which featured a special Ferrari display.

It's a 1979 Ferrari 512 BB/LM and the programme of the event had this to say about the car:

'512 BB/LM

Mid-engined flat 12; 4.9 litre; 480bhp at 7200rpm; twin

ohc per bank; fuel injected; all-round independent

suspension by A-arms/coil springs. A number of these

were built in mainly 1979 and to meet the 'Silhouette'

regs which required cars to have some resemblance to

the production versions in the windshield, doors and roof

areas.'

The car is serial number 27577, originally an Ecurie Francorchamps car and owned by Nick Mason in 1992.

Knickerbrook, Oulton Park

On Monday I showed a photograph of a Bugatti near the Knickerbrook Corner at Oulton Park. I was a schoolboy of 13 when I first went to Oulton Park and was curious, as any schoolboy would be, about how the corner had come by this name.

This, courtesy of Google earth, is the Oulton Park circuit. Knickerbrook Corner is the one at the bottom of the picture in the middle. Above it is a narrow pond between Knickerbrook Corner and Cascades Corner. When the circuit was originally laid out in 1953 the loop between Cascades and Knickerbrook did not exist - the circuit carried straight on, though I'm not sure which side of the pond it ran so Knickerbrook Corner may have been some way to the left away from its current postion. The loop was added in 1954 and since then two chicanes have been introduced on the long straight from Shell Oils Corner at the extreme right to cut the speed of the cars (and motor bikes) before they get to Knickerbrook.

Here are three Lotus Elans during a race at the Gold Cup meeting in August 2012 exiting Hislop's Chicane and going towards Knickerbrook Corner. The cars are driven by Paul Tooms, Peter Shaw and Vicky Brooks.

Here, a lap or two later, are the Elans of Paul Tooms and Peter Shaw going round the Knickerbrook Corner.

This is the actual 'Knicker Brook' - the circuit is on the other side of the barrier and tyre wall you can see at the top of the photograph and it's the bottom side of the circuit as you see it in the top picture From here it flows underneath the circuit into the pond and from there underneath the circuit at Cascades and into Oulton Lake.

As to the story of how it got its name.......Well, I don't know if the story is true but it's said that it was given this name by 'Blaster' Bates, an explosives and demolition expert. He had been engaged to remove the stumps of some beech trees before the circuit was built. At the first explosion a courting couple were seen to run from the vicinity of the brook in a state of disarray and afterwards an item of ladies' underwear was found there, leading to the naming of the corner.

Bugatti 35B

Mike Preston's 1926 Bugatti Type 35B photographed at the Hawthorn Memorial Trophies race meeting at Oulton Park in June 2008. I always have difficulties in identifying the different Bugattis, particularly the Type 35 models, but this Wikipedia article tells you how they differ.

All the Type 35 models have the straight-8 engine and that of the 35B is of 2.3 litres capacity and is supercharged.

Here's the car during the Boulogne Trophy race just starting the run up Clay Hill after Knickerbrook Corner.

The car is apparently a replica, that is to say a replica 35B not a replica Bugatti, and a forum on www.bugattibuilder.com said this about the car in 2009:

'PRESTON, Michael S.P. A Cheltenham, UK, optician and computer software specialist who, at the latest count, owned three Bugattis who joined the UK BOC in June, 1995. The car he has used most latterly is an immaculate fully road equipped emerald blue type 35B (SV 4798). According to the BBR (p.65) the car is probably based on a type 37 (37165) which was imported from Argentina in the early nineties and was rebuilt to 35B specifications by Ivan Dutton Ltd in 1995/6. The car which was owned by George Minden for most of the nineties was issued with the no. BC 080 in April 1994. He has recently taken to running the car in stripped form in racing car events and achieved second place in the 2005 Williams Trophy race run at Cadwell Park behind Geraint Owen also driving a 35B. His most recent success was a Second Class award in the 2006 VSCC Pomeroy Trophy event.'

Friday's Ferrari

Today's Ferrari is one I photographed at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in 1970. Unfortunately I can't find the programme for that event so I don't know who entered or drove the car that day, nor if any information was given about the car. I seem to recall that it was said to be the car with which Alberto Ascari won the World Championships of 1952 and 1953, in the course of which he won nine consecutive races, the final six of 1952 and the first three of 1953.

If it is that car it's the one which is now in the Grand Prix Collection at Donington Park in Leicestershire and the photograph below is one I took there in October 1989.

More Ford GT40s

I've featured the Ford GT40 previously and here are three photographs of cars in Gulf livery taken at the Coys International Historic Festival meetings at Silverstone in 1994, 1998 and 1999.

This is Martin Colvill's car which took part in the Motor Sport Pre-'70 Le Mans Car Race at the 1994 meeting, sharing the driving with John Fitzpatrick. Car number 89 alongside is the Ford GT40 of Bobby Bell.

The 1998 meeting celebrated 50 years of racing at Silverstone and there was a special display featuring a car for each of those 50 years. This is the car representing 1969 and the programme of the event says that it's the Ford GT40 of Martin Colvill, although it doesn't seem to be the same car he raced in 1994. It's not listed in the programme as taking part in any of the races at this meeting.

In 1999 Martin Colvill entered this car in the Coys of Kensington 80th Anniversary Trophy for Pre-1972 Le Mans Cars race, and it seems to be the same car I'd photographed the previous year. The programme has it listed as 'Ford GT40 P1084', the '1084' presumably being the serial number of the car as detailed here.