Bentley Drivers Club - Silverstone 2012.

Saturday [11th] Was Bentley Drivers Club Annual circuit visit to Silverstone.  As usual there was a generous number of Bentley's filling the entry list, including my most favourite Napier Bentley, with its 12 cylinder [W]  24 ltr aero engine. The majority of these cars are way older than me AND still being driven around the circuit as they supposed to be. Some of them giving the more modern version a competitive run to the finish line.

There was of course, loads of concourse cars filling the paddock spaces, 99% of which were driven to the venue. One of the racing entries, entered by Stanley Mann Racing was recently driven around the famous Nurburgring, but only after being driven there AND Back afterwards, just proving the stalwart reliability of this generation of cars.

Here's a few pictures of the cars parked in the paddock:-

Lightguards on, numbers on - ready to race.

Comprehensive Dashboard, no digital stuff here!

Solid = reliable

Supercharged Bentley

The bodywork is as good if not better than original

Even a more modern Bentley does not look out of place here

Always reminds me of a consultants car outside a hospital

One of the races is what's called a "Handicap race". This is where the slowest car starts off first, and so on till you get to the last car to start off the line, which is the fastest car. the race is set for 8 laps, so by the time the last/fastest car starts the race, he is about 2 laps behind the slowest, so only has 6 laps remaining to catch up and get first place.  The whole ideas is for all the cars to cross the finish line together, but things don't often go according to plan, plus some drivers "save"  a bit of power until actually racing properly.


Here's a bit of video footage of the start of the handicap race, it starts off from the pit lane, because if you watch over the pit-lane wall, you will see some of the slower cars already lapping those yet to start.

The Napier Bentley starts 6th from last with the last places filled with the more modern representatives from the marque. They may not has the quickest of starts, but once up to speed there is no stopping them !
The timekeeper [seen on left of screen with union flag] watches his set of time clocks and starts each car off individually as he walks down the line of cars.