We were at Croft circuit in North Yorkshire last weekend for the btcc round, an oil cooler/sump failure caused mayhem during practice, approx 12 cars involved and 3 drivers hospitalised, lots of overnight repairs meant almost a full grid but two drivers are(as far as I'm aware) are still in hospital, one possibly in critical, two big accidents in two months just remind us Motorsport is dangerous.

 

Happened to me at Mallory Park 30 years ago, I was the first car along after the oil was dumped and the marshals hadn't seen it to get the flags out. Luckily wound up on the grass and no-one hit me Worst outcome was that Lotus TwinCams are a pig to start after a spin and I missed most of the rest of practice.

 

Mmmmm, Lotus twin cams, rorty snorty on big side draught webers, not even always easy to start cold, just enough choke and a short pump of the throttle to through a little fuel down to the valves, turn the key and catch it on the throttle. if you were lucky.

 

I've had three Twinks, one road-going SE and two in race spec. I like 'em as engines and the restart after spinning is the only thing I hold against them. That could be a flooding problem in the Webers though. I've also spun a standard Lotus 912 engine on Dell'Ortos and not had that problem.

 

Very lucky, there's not much run off at Mallory. I was in a fairly high speed cayman spin there that span straight across the kitty litter and went sideways into the armco. Luckily we both walked away, but the owner of the porker was a tad upset.

I really hope that the drivers from Croft recover OK, we tend to forget that injuries can happen and change lives in the interest of having fun.

The most spectacular crash I've seen was at Goodwood last year, when a single-seater left the track and ended up in the pedestrian tunnel. Absolutely miraculous there was no-one in there because I had queued to get through about 15mins before and it was very busy.

 

This was at the end of the Stebbe straight going into the old Esses, which was flat in our cars (1970s 1600cc F3). The most grass runoff anywhere at Mallory is (was?) on the inside there next to the paddock, and that's where I went. Luck not skill.

There is a cashier in a local supermarket who is an ex-pro motorcycle racer and when there's time we swap stories. He once arrived at the Mallory Hairpin with no front brakes a couple of laps after setting a new lap record for GP350s. But the crash that finished his career was at Spa Francorchamps. Ouch! To be honest I, and most of my Classic F3 competitors, gave the brakes a stab on the way out of the Esses towards the Hairpin, but non of those who did ever set a lap record.