Pre-63 GT Historic Racing in Historic Cars

After a season’s absence the return of Pre-‘63 GT has, as organisers hoped, attracted strong interest from owners of historic cars, such as Doug Muirhead’s Austin Healey 100/6 that appeared at Le Mans with Jim Clark and has also participated in three RAC Rallies, or Gregory Heacock’s Austin Healey Sebring Sprite, which was driven at Sebring by none other than Stirling Moss and was also raced by his sister Pat Moss.  Already out this season, NASCAR and Sports Car racer Kyle Tilley has been sharing his ex-Peter Arundel Lotus Elite with brother Kane and the well-known pair of Karsten Le Blanc and Christiaen van Lanschot have been competing in ‘DD’, their famous Austin-Healey 3000 that contested Le Mans in ‘60, ‘61 and ‘62.  

“The idea behind Pre-’63 GT when we started it over ten years ago, was to provide a race series for owner-drivers of cars with illustrious history who might not want to come out in a pre-’66 race where speed differentials are that much greater,” said series founder Carol Spagg, “and we also wanted to give some cars that are less often seen out racing, such as SWB Ferraris, Aston Martins and even smaller cars like Alfa Giuliettas, Lotus Elites and MGAs a chance to shine in a gentlemanly environment, where the cars are the stars.  Looking forward to Silverstone Nikolaj Mortensen is bringing his Turner, which he will share with Jan Magnussen, all the way from Denmark,” she added, “so we can see that it is an attractive offer.  Some other well-known organisers have since started running pre-‘63 grids, but this is the original and it is still open to the same beautiful cars.”

A staunch supporter of the ethic and idea of the series from the beginning, the Royal Automobile Club will be at the Silverstone Festival to once again award one of the most prestigious prizes in historic motorsport, the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy for Historic Cars, to a Pre-‘63 GT competitor.

“We’ve been so pleased with the support we’ve received,” commented Race Coordinator Gillian Carr, who manages the races on behalf of Motor Racing Legends.  “We still have space on the grid for our June 29-30 race meeting at Snetterton, and the Silverstone Festival on 23-25 August, and on 19-20 October for the MRL Silverstone GP.”  Go to motorracinglegends.com or email gillian@motorracinglegends.com for entries.