On and off the road with Simon Arron – September 2022

It’s an odd feeling, not waking up at daft o’clock on a weekend morning, showering, making a packed lunch with one hand while preparing camera kit with the other, then vanishing who knows where. I have been known to set off for one venue, but change my mind en route and end up at another (Loton Park, for instance, when the original target had been Goodwood).

“Turns out I have photos of an event I’d forgotten ever existed…”

But now, for the first time in a long while during an active racing season, the car keys remained on their hook for two consecutive weekends. I’d been awaiting a hernia operation for some while (the problem doubtless caused by standing at weird angles on trackside banks while saddled with Nikon heft) and the time for common sense had arrived.

I’d heard many tales of prolonged recovery periods, so I’m not sure whether I’m simply weird or my nervous system is shot, but either way the whole thing was painless and I felt fit enough to resume within a few days.

Felt, but didn’t…

This short break was a handy opportunity to catch up with other projects. Over the past couple of years I have acquired various slices of photographic archive, complete with copyright, to complement my own. Some negatives are from agencies long since dissolved, but the provenance of most is a mystery. Scanning is not the work of a moment, likewise cleaning up scratches or restoring some depth to faded negatives – and the more you acquire, the greater the backlog. But this was an opportunity to catch up (slightly, at least) and it’s amazing what you find.

One film – marked as ‘Brands Hatch rallycross’ – was clearly nothing of the sort. I consulted discipline guru Tim Whittington, who swiftly confirmed the shots were taken at Deepcut Barracks, Surrey, which hosted a one-off rallycross weekend in June 1981. Turns out I have photos of an event I’d forgotten ever existed…

Most of the stuff is from the southern end of Britain – Brands Hatch, Thruxton, Castle Combe, Gurston Down and so on – but one unmarked film turned out to be from the original version of Croft, somewhere I never frequented, while another is an Aintree club meeting from 1973 (a couple of years before my first visit, though many of the cars were reassuringly familiar).

When circumstance dictates, motor sport in two dimensions seems a therapeutic alternative to the real thing.

MSVR Ford Power Live

Brands Hatch, September 18

Short drive, an easy circuit to circumnavigate without a great deal of effort… Brands Hatch seemed a logical restarting point, but also felt a bit weird. There were lengthy queues outside the circuit an hour before the action started – yet inside the spectator banks seemed fairly quiet throughout the day.

It’s probably the first time I’ve been to a racing event where there was significantly more interest in events off the track (massed ranks of Fords in assorted states of tune) than anything happening on it, even though that also involved lots of Fords. There was some wonderful racing going on 80 miles down the road at Goodwood, but the Revival Meeting doesn’t cater for Escorts or Capris…