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TVRs
at Rockingham - 14th September 2002
After the
recent request on this website for volunteers to
chauffeur CART series drivers round the
circuit before the race - here are a few of reports
and some photos from four TVR owners who went...
TVR
at Rockingham Motor Speedway
Photos
from Tim Stanley
TVR
at Rockingham Motor Speedway Report 1.
Report
and pics by Alan. Mid-Essex
14th September 2002
 Just
thought I'd give you a brief update with 2 pics on the Rockwell
event on Saturday. Basically, it was the dogs 'b*&&&&'!!!
We were given VIP access right into the heart of the circuit..behind
the pits. Initially we lined up near the track pit entrance...they
then moved us to a cordoned off area and lined us up in 2 rows
of 9 cars which they then proceeded to put the drivers names on
the cars (I got Paul Tracy...I've followed cart in years gone by
and he is quite famous in this sport..so that was great).
Closer to the off they lined the TVR's up in
the drivers 'grid' order, the cars were left
like that for 2 hours & people were
just swarming over them over those 2 hours...it was quite incredible
to watch. We then went to a drivers briefing and they told us what
to do and what 'not' to do..ie drive too fast with the drivers
sitting on top!!
 When
the time came we were all lined up in the pits
in the grid order with all the cart cars and
teams around us, oh..+ many thousands of people
watching us! The drivers came out and I took
Paul (as I now know him!) around the main grandstands,
we had quite a good chat as he was waving +
saw my car on all the TV screens around the
circuit...cool.
We then sat down to watch the event....so a great day for all and
one we will remember for sometime!
TVR at Rockingham Motor Speedway Report 2.
Report
by David Richards, Pics courtesy of Tom Smith
14th September 2002
OK, so 5.00 am on a Saturday does not necessarily
inspire you to be bright eyed and bushy tailed
unless you like fishing, but Saturday 14th
Sept was a little different. You see some members
of the TVRCC had been invited, press-ganged
or begged their way into driving the visiting
CART drivers on their parade laps of Rockingham
Motor Speedway.
The lure of this and fine weather (I remember
Oulton Park) dragged me from my slumbers and
I set off. The first challenge of any day
when you are showing off your TVR is getting it to start which
Trevor (imaginative eh?) did first time though he did sound a bit
ropy, but then so did I so who’s complaining.
 Off
I went with my trusty sidekick, Helen, to the
delights of Corby. We had a fine drive down,
no traffic and no police so we got there from
Derby in double quick time. The A6 is a grand
road when there’s no traffic about. We
were due to meet at the Corby Hilton, which
sounds a bit like the local nickname for the
prison and we would be greeted with hot coffee
and a warm welcome from the Rockingham staff
at around 7.00 am.
We duly arrived at the appointed time and found
around half a dozen other TVR’s in the
car park so figuring they would be there for
the same reason parked up and we were soon
welcomed by Dennis
the organising RO for Northants. We hung around in the car park
for a short while and then headed off for the hot coffee and warm
welcome.
We waited in the hotel foyer admiring the empty crockery for a
while before we sent the men off to hunt and forage for the coffee,
which they duly returned with. Actually they were more frog marching
some callow youth who clearly loved his job with one pot of coffee
between about 15 of us so we sent him off for some more. Clearly
scarred of us he sent his trusty side kick out with the next lot
and some tea.
The Rockingham staff arrived and hid from us all (I’m beginning
to see a theme here) but Dennis soon sniffed them out and located
them down the corridor turn right then left through the doors turn
right etc etc.
We got out tickets and set off.
 We
went in convoy. A long line of TVRs always gets attention even
at 8.00 am and the convoy was lead at a sensible pace (once again
I remember Oulton Park, Marcus) for the ten minutes trip to the
circuit.
Now, I remember Corby from old. A huge steel works used to feed
work to the town. The local schools would open their doors and
the steel works would open theirs and somewhere in between 16-year-old
boys would become working men. So imagine my surprise when we went
around a roundabout and where the steel works once stood was Rockingham
Motor Speedway. That gives some idea of the size of this place.
Anyway, we arrived at the front door and were quickly ushered to
the inner sanctums of the circuit that involved going through a
tunnel, one at a time of course. The tunnel could have done with
being at least 100 yards longer, but geography saw to that. We
were guided and cajoled into (the wrong) place and left to our
own devices. Very dangerous that, TVR owners with access to pits
full of enormous engines and lots of noise.
Now I mentioned earlier that I was anticipating a warm day etc,
after all Andrea on the GMTV weather had promised that it would
be. However she had told a little white lie there and I went off
in search of a jumper, successfully avoiding the polar bears. That
was probably the best move I made all day, so thanks Andrea. I
went off to the shops, amazingly was not ripped off (look and learn
British GP) and ensconced in my new Rockingham hoody headed back
to the cars. When I arrived I was greeted by one of the Northants
folks, Steve, who duly informed me that we were all in the wrong
place and had to move, so Steve and myself hopped in our respective
cars and moved.
 When
I pulled up in the appointed space a young
man appeared clutching a load of names and
a bucket of foamy water and as I was the only
one by my car enquired as to whether he could
stick a drivers name to my car. "That
depends" I said "on who you want
to stick on."
"Well who do you want", came the reply
Bargain I thought.
I knew that Steve’s partner Nicci was a fan in the most extreme
sense of Dario Franchitti (good Scottish name that) so I chose
Andretti for two reasons. Firstly, I remember his dad racing, which
I pointed out to him on the parade lap and secondly the only other
driver I knew was Paul Tracy and I didn’t fancy driving around
with Tracy on my windscreen. As I was having the name affixed to
the windscreen Steve wandered over and I informed him that he should
grab the name affixer and tell him to put Franchitti on his car.
He did and he did, so happy folks all round.
So we were all fully named up and set for a
drivers briefing. We were told where we were
going on the lap, well half a lap as it
turned out and how fast we were going (not very - actually my clutch
has never been the same since) and if the drivers didn’t get
in we had to go anyway. Oh and if we weren’t back at the cars
at 12.15 am she would hot-wire it and drive it herself. Right.
So we all cleared off to watch Colin Mcrae
and Jason Plato battle it out for mid placed
respectability in the Ascars, which was fun,
before heading back to our cars for the appointed times. Now I’m
not particularly precious about my TVR, but it’s probably
the best thing I ever bought and I would hate to be without it.
But it gets a bit much when your car is surrounded by people poking
around inside it (we had to leave the roof off) and when you ask
them to move away because you need to get to it, they get all offended.
Still there’s nothing so strange as folks.
 Anyway
we were asked to move off to the pit lane entrance
and thankfully there was still life in to battery
to start the thing after the alarm had been
going off. So we drove around to the appointed
slot and waited, and boy did we wait while
a track display of a Ford Mustang went on and
an air display and all the time I daren’t
turn the thing off. I guess I could have consoled
myself in the fact that there were a few mechanics
around who knew a bit about V8’s. And
while I’m on that thread, how come they
had less capacity that my car but put out 800
bhp, come TVR you clearly aren’t trying
hard enough!
So the pace car arrived and the announcement
was made that the driver had to go to their
parade cars. The whole show was Anglo-Americana
and some American who actually sounded as though he had never heard
of them announced the TVR’s as True British Sports Cars in
the sort of voice that suggested he didn’t believe his script.
Actually, I was quite surprised that John Travolta and Swordfish
wasn’t mentioned.
So I sat around and waited and the cars slowly filled up. I guessed
my driver was imminent because suddenly photographers were around
the car like bees around a honey pot and I figured it had nothing
to do with me.
In a flurry of activity Michael Andretti was sat next to me asked
about my welfare in the true American way, "hey, how are ya".
(Crap as it happens I was up at 5.00 am to do this) "Good,
how are you" I replied and off we went.
Now, the thing that really surprised me was
that just as we were about to set off he said "what am I supposed to do".
At this point I should have said, "Buy me a new TVR you wouldn’t
miss the money" but I didn’t I told him to stand on the
seat and do what the guy in front did. If Andretti had driven a
few hundredths of a second faster and got pole he would have been
scuppered. Everything happens for a reason I guess.
We had a fair old chat on the way around, he wanted to know how
many people were there and wanted to know a bit about the car etc
which was more than most other folks got. I think the majority
were greeted with a stony silence, so full marks for effort from
Mr. Andretti. Anyway, the lap consisted of driving clockwise past
all the stands and then back down the pit lane. I have to say I
guess there were around 20,000 people there and they made a serious
racket. I was surprised that you could hear people calling specific
names out and Michael Andretti seemed pretty popular.
 Well
we drove back down the pit lane and as quickly
as they were in the car they were gone. However
I’m pleased to say that even Michael Andretti
tried to get out of the Griff by opening the
ashtray!
He signed my ticket for me, which may sound
an odd thing to say but I spent a good five
minutes cursing him. I gave him the ticket
white side up to sign and when I looked, no signature. What a ****
I thought before I realised that he’d signed the other side.
Nicci got Dario’s autograph (personalised don’t you know)
so everything came up roses.
We went off in search of food and our seats
and watched the race. Not a great deal to say
here, it’s a bit like Scalectrix with
real cars and people. I remain a firm fan of Tuscans and GT’s
though as a one off spectacle it was quite something. Dario won,
it really was Nicci’s day, Andretti came 10th after a series
of drive through penalties. Nakano (remember him from FI) did the
same as he always did and crashed at Turn 4 in front of us, and
that was about it.
I didn’t get to see Nicci and Steve before
we went, we had to go pretty sharpish after
the race due to other commitments,
which we missed because the M1 was shut and it took us 5 hours
to get home, and now the clutch really is knackered. But they were
good company on the day and a general thanks to the Northants crew
for making a Staffs member welcome in their midst. Also thanks
to Richard and Marcus for letting me know about the event.
So would I do it again, You bet, it’s
not very often you get to give Michael Andretti
driving tips on the racing line through
Turn 1.
TVR at Rockingham
Motor Speedway Report 3.
Report
by Hugh Bishop
14th September 2002
When I saw the appeal on the Club website for TVR drivers to go
to Rockingham to do the CART drivers parade I jumped at the chance.
After collecting the tickets from the Corby
Hilton we went to circuit and into the Inner
Paddock to join the other TVRs. There were
20
cars including Tamoras, Tuscans, Griffiths and Chimeras – all
cleaned and polished for the occasion. We were given a briefing
by an American lady from CART whose main worry was that we didn’t
use air conditioning and put water on the track! No worries, it
was too cold – but at least not raining. Then it was off to
watch the ASCAR race which had Colin McRae guesting in one of the
cars.
At 12.30 we were back with our cars to move
towards the pit lane where we were to collect
the drivers. We had our drivers name on
the windscreen so the crowds could identify them as they were introduced
by the commentators. Unfortunately we didn’t get to drive
the whole circuit but just paraded along the start straight. The
sight of 20 TVRs on the track was impressive though and seemed
to get a great reception from the crowd – or maybe they were
cheering for Dario Franchitti and Darren Manning! Our cars also
created a lot of interest among the American visitors and the drivers.
After dropping the drivers back in the pit lane it was time to
park and head off to watch the start. The race itself was very
fast and thrilling. With a lap time for the CART cars of only 25
seconds, several refuelling stops and safety car periods there
was never any chance to get bored. Kenny Brack dominated the early
stages of the race but at the end of 211 laps the crowd was ecstatic
to cheer Scot Dario Franchitti as the winner of his first CART
oval win.
Rockingham is a superb facility and so different
to any other circuit in Britain and to watch
American style racing this close to home
is an opportunity not to be missed. Let’s hope they ask TVR
to do the drivers parade.
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