Our track day on 20th October proved to be a huge draw with over 160 people attending. With Covid and social distance measures in place it did not detract from what was a very successful event and our grateful thanks go to our sponsors and club partner Swallows Racing, members of the Saloon & GT Championship, JEC office team, chairman Ray Searles, members of the JEC events team and volunteers from JEC Somerset Region that marshalled the gate and helped to make this day possible.
After the safety briefing held in the pit lane to ensure social distancing, sighting laps were held followed by a novice only session before some of the more exotic machinery took to the track. We were delighted to see our friends from the Series Elite Project 8 racing programme with Racing Manager Graeme Glew and partner Eve along with racing driver Immanuel Vinke who was happy to take some lucky guests on some hot passenger laps.
With the Swallows Racing track cars (Palmersport XKR, Palmer JP1 and XJR6 Race Car) giving the usual passenger rides it was also the perfect opportunity for them to test the recent manual conversion of their Palmer XKR to the six speed ZF box which proved to be trouble free and very successful and our former chairman Rob Jenner was privileged to take the wheel and entice a brave current chairman Ray Searles to join him in the passenger seat.
Regular on the Jaguar show scene Neil Blaxill arrived with his very unique Mk2 (Mr Blink) with its V8 Supercharged engine sourced from a XJR along with much of its running gear and interior and was driven track by Rob Jenner and our own Colin Porter. A little of the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Revival was present as well with Grant Williams who is famous for lighting up tyres with spectacular ‘burn outs’ in his Mk1 BYE1 at the Festival of Speed. On this occasion he was at Castle Combe with his newly restored Mk2 JAG400 a car that raced in period with Jack Sears and was also driven by Sir Stirling Moss. Grant kindly offered passenger rides to a lucky few attendees.
During the lunch interval JEC Podcast regular, Swallows Racing Tom Robinson was on track with his XJR6 race car with a photo and film shoot for the JEC with up and coming British Super Bike star Olii Warren who kindly brought his Yamaha race bike. Interviewed by Wayne Scott, Tom and Olii discussed the differences and similarities of racing a big Jag and a race bike. With a couple of demonstration laps completed on the Yahama, Olii climbed into the passenger seat of the XJR6 with Tom at the wheel Olii was able to appreciate how well Jag handles. Olii is a dedicated JLR owner and brought with him his XE road car and his latest acquisition a ‘Twisted’ Landrover.
After a year of events not happening including the track day in March it was wonderful to finally be able out enjoying cars and company again, thank you to all of those who attended and helped to make this our best track day so far. 2021 track day dates are in the planning and we hope to be able to announce these soon on our news pages and social media.
