A week before the centenary of circuit saviour Tom Wheatcroft’s birth, the 11th Donington Historic Festival welcomed spectators back in number. Thirty years after Group C sportscars last graced the track contemporarily, the spectacle of Rob Huff’s bellowing IMSA GTP Spice SE89P staving off the howling Silk Cut Jaguar V12s of Andy Bentley and Phil Keen on Saturday was priceless.
“Those last few laps were intense,” grinned Huff, whose previous outing in Richard Meins’s monster was in 2018’s Le Mans Classic. “Ten laps from the end, the engine [a Chevrolet V8, not the Oldsmobile that powered actor Paul Newman/Mike Brockman in period] dropped a cylinder and the Jags were all over me. Donington is so fast, the perfect place for these cars. I only just kept Andy behind. It was wonderful. They had more downforce, but I had more grunt until the engine note changed. I remembered my MGB racing, when this happened often, so backed off.”
