The true challenge of racing historic cars in the rain | Frankel’s Insight

I can remember one of the very early Revivals when I was racing an Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite, and as we sat in the Assembly Area waiting to go for qualifying I received a tap on the window from a marshal who cheerfully informed me that the circuit was partly flooded at Madgwick and again at the exit of St. Mary’s. She probably thought the small river flowing across the track at Fordwater barely worth a mention.

Normally in such a small light car up against Cobras, 250 GTO and E-types (this was back in the day when even a Sprite could make it onto the grid of the RAC TT Celebration), I’d relish such conditions and fancy my chances in scoring a grid position that would be simply impossible in the dry.

Unfortunately, the car had been set up with all the compliance of a rollerskate, so spent it’s time skipping off the puddles, ricocheting around the track like an ill-directed bullet. I can’t remember where we qualified but if it was anywhere other than last I’d be amazed.

Many years later, still in the RAC TT but in the rather more senior Lister Costin Coupé I was sharing with Richard Attwood, I started the race on dry settings on the basis that you should always play the weather you have, not the weather you think you might get.

This time it was a big mistake, because it started drizzling almost as soon as the flag fell. The car was just about manageable so long as you stayed on the racing line which stayed merely damp, but every time I tried to pass someone it threatened to behave very poorly indeed.

So, this not being my car, I was content to hold station until Richard took over, after which the heavens really opened. The car would have been hideous to drive, a characteristic not helped by the cockpit steaming up, leaving Richard no option but to frantically wipe the screen with a yellow cloth we’d left there for precisely that purpose as he howled past the pits. We finished 11^th, which I regard as near miraculous under the circumstances.

Contrast that to a race I did at a no-less wet Spa in a Porsche 904. Of all ‘senior’ historic cars I’ve raced, none has given me more confidence and set up soft for what I seem to recall was a two-hour, two-driver race. It didn’t just get past bigger, wildly more powerful machines like Jags and Astons, it positively strolled, even on a power circuit like that.

We’d had a problem in the first stint so were never going to come anywhere, but as a demonstration of what the right car can do when set up properly for the conditions the experience has stayed with me ever since.

As has one other, and for no reason other than I’d never laughed as much at the wheel of a racing car before, and nor have I since. It was a club meeting at Donington and I was in an old Alfa Romeo Giulietta coupé, so I guess it was an SZ. And the circuit was perfect for such a car. Tracks are always at their most difficult when they’re damp with the odd properly wet section and a few dry patches, but this time the track was just nicely and consistently, wet.

I was somewhere near the back because it only had a 1,300cc engine and qualifying had been dry, but I reckoned with a bit of effort I could drag us up into the midfield and at least win the class. Which is what I tried to do for a couple of laps, until one thing became crystal clear to me: the Alfa wasn’t interested in being all serious, it just wanted to have fun.

Which is when it occurred to me that I felt exactly the same way. So, I’m afraid I abandoned all attempts at actually racing and instead spent the rest of my time seeing how sideways I could go without spinning. To which the answer was ‘very’.

The best corner was Coppice, which you’d turn into over the brow with just a nudge on the wheel, then wind the wheel pretty much as far as it would go in the other direction and ride out the slide on the throttle from entry to apex. Truly, the greatest danger this approach posed was me laughing myself off the track.

Generally speaking, I prefer to race in the rain, so long as I have the right equipment for the job. One of the most enjoyable races I’ve ever had was in a Ferrari 750 Monza at Dijon which I’d qualified midfield in the dry against cars like D-type Jaguars with larger, more easily tuned engines and disc brakes.

Come the race, I couldn’t understand why everyone else was going so slowly — the torque of its thumping four pot 3.0-litre engine, the traction conferred by its transaxle gearbox and the nimbleness of its exceptionally short wheelbase all just played into my hands. After an epic battle with Gregor Fiskin in an Aston Martin DB3S I was able to hand the car over to its owner in the lead. I’ll not deny it: I was quite pleased with that one.

Goodwood photography by Charlie Brenninkmeijer and Joe Harding.