Richard's Latest – November 2011

Please click on the bold links throughout the text to see relevant photographs.

Winter has arrived at Blyton Park: after a very dry and reasonably warm Summer and Autumn, the leaves are off the trees and there is a real chill in the air.

Our first seven months have been hectic, interesting and huge fun: I have been fortunate to be able to welcome thousands of car and bike enthusiasts to the track and watched you all enjoy participating in recreational driving and hopefully learning more about your own and your machine’s capabilities. We have managed to avoid any serious incidents,although in line with my philosophy of creating the track, many of our visitors have gone well beyond the limit of their ability to keep their machine on the fully prepared surface!!!

It has been my absolute pleasure to meet so many like –minded enthusiasts and we hope to see you again soon as our calendar for 2012 looks very busy. We also hope to carry out quite a lot of new track work over the Winter so even our most regular visitors should find some new tarmac to explore!!!

Turning the clock back to July, we had an amazing day for Rally fanatics when Steve Perez hired the track for a mouth-watering exhibition of Historic rally cars. An Ex-Vatanen Escort, ex-Mikkola Quattro, ex-Burns Impreza and the Mellors Elliot Proton joined Steve’s brace of WRC Focuses and a terrific array of other machinery. Henry Catchpole was on hand from EVO magazine and the day was well covered in that publication.

In the same week we were privileged to be the venue for the Press Launch of the very limited edition Audi R8GT. As well as a number of R8’s, Audi also brought the R8LMS race car and Marino Franchitti took guests on some very hot laps in this awesome machine. I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy a ride in this car and loved the speed, grip and skill of the pilot!!! As one would expect, the car was immaculately prepared, even down to the Map of the circuit on the steering wheel!

Track Days have been a source of a huge variety of both two and four wheeled machinery: one of the more unusual was run with Practical Classics magazine and featured some venerable cars from their stable including Editor Danny Hopkins in a Nissan Cherry and Keith Moody’s Volvo Amazon. I particularly enjoyed my drive in a 2.8 Ford Capri owned by Nick Battersby which was a real trip down memory lane. Other esoteric and welcome machines on trackdays have included Mk 1 Ford Cortina, MG Maestro, Vauxhall Chevette, the three wheeled Grinnalls, a Legend racer and a brace of really pretty Austin-Healey Sprites.

Testing has also brought great variety from some gorgeous E-Types, one of which was driven by Dave Coyne to contemporary Formula Fords and Renaults. We were delighted to welcome the Dynojet BTCC team for a test and were impressed with the speed of the Toyota and young Frank Wrathall. Jotasport brought the rapid Mazda MX5 whilst the fun of competition was encapsulated by the Sheffield Formula Student Team and the venerable Citroen 2CV preparing for the annual 24 hour race.

Blyton Park has been used extensively by the press for evaluation of new cars and bikes with Auto Express, Autocar and Motor Cycle News all visiting regularly. Auto Express have brought some really fast cars and I particularly enjoyed the comparative test between the Jaguar and Maserati.

Real racing cars have been prolific visitors and I was really pleased to see a lovely Lola Sports 2000 car and a truly magnificent Speed Six Bentley. Most awesome of all was Scott Mansell’s Benetton B199 powered by 4 litres of Mr Judd’s finest V10. The car set a new unofficial lap record in October and was doing over 170mph when Scott braked for The Wiggler. The noise was truly symphonic!!!

Competition has continued throughout the Summer with Autograss, Rallycross and Sprints. I ventured out for one of the latter in our trusty Cooper S but was beaten by my son, whilst the final round of the Toyota Sprint Series saw the usual drama with the battle at the front. Congratulations to Adrian and commiserations to Jonny: those two cars were an epic sight.

The Experience Companies have kept us busy with a flood of drivers enjoying Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Aston Martins amongst others, but their season and the racing season are drawing to a close as the days get colder and shorter.

Our 2012 calendar will be on the website soon but we still have some trackdays in December and WE ARE STILL OPEN FOR TESTING IN THE WEEK!!

I would like to thank you all for making my first year at Blyton Park so busy and enjoyable. Have a great Christmas, Drive Safely and here’s to another great year in 2012.

We hope to lay some more NEW TARMAC in the early New Year and I look forward to seeing you at Blyton Park very soon.

Richard Usher