Oily Weekends

“68 people can’t be wrong” I once heard my father say when trying to explain the appeal of vintage car trailing to someone. 68 might have been a bit on the conservative side, but there was rarely more than several hundred competitors, organisers, spectators, marshals, scrutineers and bouncers in total at any of these events. And not the kind of bouncers you might think - when the wheels of your vintage car start spinning in the mud and you start to loose traction, having a passenger (or 3) to bounce up and down often helps you get a little further up the hill and another point or two on your score card - which will also be covered in mud. But in terms of spectators its not like formula one. When attempting a stage of the trial your spectators usually include someone with a dog (who then turns out to be the landowner), someone riding a horse, someone who is lost and your other competitors who are just watching you so they know how not to do it when its their go.

But wrecking your car up muddy hills in the middle of nowhere at various beautiful places round the uk is not the only thing to do with your vintage or classic vehicle. There are slightly cleaner options and they will have more spectators. Racing round most of the existing tracks including Monaco, driving to Brighton (your car needs to be 100years old though…) with lots of other similar cars and experiencing racing speeds on banked concrete track in France are all still regularly available for you and your vehicle regardless of whether is a family heirloom, bought in a pub for a couple of grand , the result of a lottery win or just what you always wanted to do with the spoils of your long and successful career in finance. But something usually goes wrong and you end up getting dirty trying to get out of the situation and/or fix the car. Or paying someone to do that for you. The general risk of all motor sport, the reasonably high chance of mechanical failure connected to all vintage cars, the physical effort involved, the history, the smell of oil, leather, petrol and of course the dirt all adds up and makes the experience. These photographs were taken at a variety of vintage and classic car events in the UK and France.