Historic Leyburn Sprints 2016

By Jason McGarry, photos courtesy Trapnell Creations.

The Lotus Club had 3 members competing in the event that I know of being Paul Stokell in a 2009 Radical SR3 (Racing Cars – Formula Libre log booked), Phil Hart in a 1999 Porsche GT3 (Modern Sports Cars over 2000cc) and myself, Jason McGarry, in a 1988 Caterham (Modern Clubman). There were over 200 entries spanning 91 years of motoring with 1925 Austin Roadster being the oldest and the Neil Lewis 2016 model Fly being the newest.

Early showers on Saturday morning result in a damp track for the first run with it beginning to dry out towards the completion of the first run, this resulted in Phil being 5th quickest and my black Caterham being 12th at the end of the run. At one point I was 9th. (Fortunately I do have photographic proof). This all changed as the track dried and the fast cars were able to obtain traction on the dry track.

The weather remained clear from mid-morning Saturday through to Sunday which resulted in very quick times for all competitors with most people breaking their PB’s. Paul in the Radical ended up being the quickest of the Lotus members with a 45.34 sec which placed him 4th in his class and 4th overall. Dean Amos in a 1997 Gould GR37 open wheeler was the quickest over the weekend doing a 42.54 sec.

Phil in the GT3 was leading his class until the last run, his fastest time was a 50.95 sec which placed him 20th overall. My Caterham’s best time was 53.0599 sec which was first in the Modern Clubman class by 4 seconds, 44th overall and nearly 2 seconds of my previous best time. I think we all put our cars on the trailers with no injuries or problems.

A couple of other highlights of the weekend for me was seeing a 2007 Lotus 2-Eleven for the first time at a race event owned and driven by Glen Amos, unfortunately I wasn’t able to view it as it was close to when I was on track, it ended up with a time of 56.52 secs. They are certainly a great looking car.

The second highlight was having Dick Johnson and John French attend the event where they gave an interview and then went around the track in Tru Blu XD Falcon it was great to have these motoring Legends at the event. John French who is in his eighties actually competed 2 years ago at the event.

This is my favourite event of the year and I look forward to 2017.