Motor Sport Vision Racing 

Parklife - Part One – Postcard from Oulton Park

Report by David Harbey

Photography by Andrew Harbey

30 July 2020

There’s a tongue-in-cheek thread out on the internet that talks about a day visitor to a lovely part of Kent being disturbed by the sound of a Chevy V8 ! It was, of course, for that visitor a most welcome interruption as motorsport was back underway at Brands Hatch – thank goodness there’s still some humour left in the world.

For PistonClick it was all Parks last weekend – Oulton, Cadwell and Mallory – for a wide range of motorsport. Andrew and I headed to Oulton Park on Saturday morning for MSV Racing’s meeting – and we will be back next weekend for the first races of the British GT season. PistonClick’s Oulton Park guide can be found here - Oulton Park Circuit Guide.

It’s a long journey but had the benefit of Radcliffe and Maconie on 6Music on the way up and The Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show on the return journey.

Motor Sport Vision had again taken their comprehensive approach to COVID-19 with pre-booked tickets only, clear guidance on site including a no spectators in the paddock (see their map above) and take away catering only.

Having left my healthy pasta salad in the fridge 130 miles away, I was able to test drive the sausage, chips, beans and onion rings - they passed with flying colours.

We used the Knickerbrook entrance and parked up with a view across to Cascades. In the event, although we walked across to the Chequers Restaurant in the centre of the track for lunch, we took all our photos between Clay Hill and Brittens. Andrew started out using the Nikon D610 and 70-200mm zoom and, in the event, used that combination all day while I was using the 200-500mm zoom.

For this report, I am using all Andrew’s photos of the action. As we arrived there was blue sky, big clouds and sunshine. The day clouded over from time to time with the odd spot of rain but the forecast wall-to-wall rain did not, thankfully, emerge.

With sportscars, saloons, GTs and single seaters on the bill, largely decent sized entries and multiple races for each category, a good day was in prospect and so it proved. First to focus on (sorry) was the Focus Cup Championship. A smallish field, but immaculately turned out and closely matched.

A gruff engine note and a little black smoke from a couple of the cars on acceleration sent me to the programme – yes, they were 2.0 TDCi Zetec S diesels. The cars are liveried for series sponsors and the driver picks their car for the day out of a hat.

The single seater category was Monoposto – which I discover is as old as I am !  Formed to allow a wide variety of single seaters to complete in various classes, it used to attract the self-builder, although now it seems that the pendulum has swung to proprietary chassis. 

Cars range from small, but very quick, bike-engined Jedi’s to early noughties F3 chassis. As you will see Andrew likes to get the shutter speed nice and slow – and I love the effect on F3 wheels on #10 and #22.

The Radicals were the headline act with three races – two over 50 minutes with pit-stops and a 20 minute sprint race. The racing was quick and closely contested down the field.

Liberties were taken by some over the kerbs at Brittens. Front runner Mark Richards #52 failed to finish the first race stopping just after Brittens.

I have been watching Clubmans cars race for most of my life; they are, perhaps, slightly strange looking front-engined, be-winged cars – but don’t let that deceive you – they are as quick as F3 cars.

The ubiquitous Mallock dominates, but there are other chassis – Vision, Phantom, GEM and Lester. Of particular interest is #76 which features images of Catchpole, the much missed Autosport cartoon character and his acquaintances – that’s one to look at more closely when we can get back to the paddock.

I’d seen the, deep breath, Petro-Canada Lubricants Porsche Club Championship with Pirelli at Snetterton and knew we were on for some good racing. The best action was in Class 2 where Richard Bayston’s 944S was taking on a horde of Boxsters. 

Having stayed ahead for half the race, eventually Ross Morris #1 got past for the class win although whether the missing door panel on Bayston’s car had anything to do with it, wasn’t clear.

A good day out – thanks to Andrew for the use of his photos. My photos of the day will be loaded to my Flickr account in the course of the next few days.