End of Season Racing

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Each year the season seems to extend further into the autumn months and, as the rally drivers are starting to anticipate the thrills of sliding on the ice and snow, there is still a lot of great circuit racing beyond September, for those who have survived the Silverstone Festival, Goodwood and Spa Six Hours.   The Spa Six Hours marks the end of September and the traditional early October Dijon meeting, now known as Dijon Motors Cup, organised by HVM, will offer its usual mix of international grids with races for Lurani Formula Junior, F2 Classic Interseries,  Formula 3 Classic, F3 1000cc, Triumph Competition and HTCC and a Ferrari Club Deutschland race for more modern cars.  From the Netherlands the SuperSixties will, as last year, take part in the HVM 120-minute 300km race on Saturday evening, as well as having their own race on Sunday.  F1 time attack for Formula  cars of the ‘90s and a Lotus Cup Europe complete the programme.

In October the HGPCA returns to the undulating Algarve circuit, a drivers favourite

A relatively new event is Roadbook’s third race meeting at Spa on 4-6 October, the same weekend as Dijon, which will cater mostly for series from neighbouring Holland with races for Formula Ford and other single seaters, marque races for Porsche, Peugeot, and BMW E90 with, in addition, the Spa Ardennes Challenge, also known as the ‘Barry Race’, for Sports, GTs, Touring and Saloon cars built between the ‘60s and the ‘80s and “historic cars of special interest as well as invited cars,” so something for everyone.

The final round of the French Championships will take place at Val de Vienne on 18-20 October, the same weekend that MRL will host a meeting on the full Grand Prix circuit at Silverstone.  This meeting features MRL’s Royal Automobile Club Woodcote Trophy and Stirling Moss Trophy, Historic Touring Cars, Pre’63 GT and the three-hour RAC Pall Mall Cup for pre-‘66 GT, touring and sports cars.  This meeting is also supported by the HRDC, which always packs the grids with its colourful variety of GT and touring cars.  This is a much-anticipated meeting, as it will feature the first round of the new GT3 Legends series announced earlier this year. 

It is also in the autumn months that the Iberian Peninsula, where the mild weather lasts longer, is the ideal place for an extended season.  Top of the list are the Estoril Classic meeting on 4-6 October, and the Algarve Classic Festival.  Supported by the commune of Cascais and the regional tourist board, Estoril will mark the final rounds of all the Peter Auto grids and headline the Classic Formula One race for pre-1986 cars, as well as a round of Diogo Ferrão’s Iberian Historic Endurance.  

Considered to be one of the best, most challenging circuits in Europe, the Algarve meeting this year, on October 25-27, will see the return of the Iberian Historic Endurance grid with two 50-minute races and, of course, ever faithful to this event, the GT & Sports Car Cup will hold its final two-hour race there.  The HGPCA also returns to the Algarve.

Finally, Canossa has invited Masters Historic Racing to join the Alfa Revival Cup at its Mugello Racing Weekend on 11-13 October and the Masters will be offering races there for their F1 cars, Endurance Legends, Gentlemen Drivers and Pre-‘66 Touring Cars.  The beautiful 5.245km Tuscan circuit seems like a perfect place to end the season.

But there is one more big event to come in November, with the Deux Tours d’Horloge, the only true 24-hour race for historic cars.  Organised by V de V Racing for GT, Prototype and Touring cars up to 1976, the race meeting at Paul Ricard will feature two ASAVÉ support races, for cars up to ’65 and up to ’76.

4-6 October Dijon Motors Cup  HVM

4-6 October SuperSpa Roadbook

4-6 October Estoril Classic Peter Auto

12-13 October Silverstone Finals HSCC

18-20 October Historic Tour Val de Vienne  HVM

19-20 October MRL Silverstone GP Meeting MRL

25-27 October Algarve Classic Festival 

1-3 November Deux Tours d’Horloge Paul Ricard VdeV Racing

These stories are all from the pages of Historic Motor Racing News.  Some have been abbreviated for this web site.  If you'd like to receive the full version, please visit our subscription page where you will find postal subscriptions available.  A full subscription also entitles you to access the current issue online (available soon), so you can take it with you and read it anywhere, and we are working on providing full access to our archives of back issues exclusively for our subscribers.