The 4th July this year was a significant date, not just for US citizens but in England as well with the re-opening of much of our economy including the £11bn motorsport sector. This included JEC Racing, which will return after an eight-month break, albeit sadly behind closed doors for the time being. If and when spectating is allowed this season, we will let you know via the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club’s media channels.
The Toyo Tires/ Watchdogapp.com Saloon & GT Championship returns at Thruxton on 25th July with two races in what will be a shortened championship of six rounds instead of the normal twelve, the other rounds taking place on the weekends August 15that Snetterton and 27th September at Donington Park.
Our classic racing in the form of the XK Series and Hawthorn Challenge returns as well behind closed doors with our first outing at Cadwell Park on 26th July followed by Silverstone on 8th August concluding with the popular Autumn Classic at Castle Combe on 3rd & 4th October.
The governing body of racing in this country, Motorsport UK have worked tremendously hard to support motorsport through this crisis including providing clubs and circuits with finance, guidance, and essential PPE equipment. Racing will look very different from 4th July with measures in place such as remote signing on, scrutineering by technical declaration supported by photo & video evidence, marshals social distancing and wearing PPE, medics wearing high level PPE, reductions of officials in race control and drivers confided to cars in Parc Ferme, all of this has been put in place whilst ensuring driver safety isn’t compromised.
Although spectators are not allowed at present it is possible to continue to follow our JEC Racing in several ways. TSL Timing provide live streaming of the timing screens for all of our racing you can find them at https://www.tsl-timing.com/ some of our circuits also have radio commentary, search via the circuit website, you may be able to pick these up if you live fairly near that circuit. Our partners at Classic Sports Car Club stream some Saloon & GT races on their Facebook page, although they can’t say at this point which races this will be, but you can keep up to date via their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ClassicSportsCarClub/ . We will of course continue to cover all of our racing in the club magazine as well as Jaguar World and on the JEC website racing page https://jec.org.uk/racing hopefully it won’t be too long before we can welcome you back to racing in person.
Much of the remainder of this season will no doubt be spent on assessing the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the sport and how that will dictate what motorsport will look in the future. We at the JEC with our motorsport partners will be doing the same. We’ll be looking at ways to grow our grids, make racing more accessible, how we communicate with the Jaguar and classic racing communities, and bring you more exciting events so we can continue thrive and keep the Jaguar name in motorsport where it belongs.
