The award-winning Longstone Light Car Race returns

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The Vintage Sports-Car Club and Longstone Tyres are two institutions of the old-car world. The VSCC has energetically encouraged the preservation and enthusiastic use of Vintage and PVT cars since 1934, and in so doing has saved countless pre-war cars from abandonment and neglect, generated friendships and brought enjoyment to thousands of drivers and spectators. Longstone Tyres is a bit younger, but no less important. After all, without it we might not have enough tyres for our cars, and we certainly wouldn't have the Longstone Light Car Race.

The history of the often forgotten discipline of light-car racing goes back to Brooklands and Montlhéry in the 1920s, when they were a regular fixture. The VSCC's Light Car & Edwardian section revived the concept in a rather more jocular fashion at Silverstone in 1951 and it remained very popular throughout the 1950s, but as time moved on it gradually fell off the calendar.

Dougal Cawley and the Longstone Tyres team committed to bringing the Light Car Race back, and, after too long an absence, it was run at Oulton Park in July 2021. Spectators gasped as drivers with nerves of steel threw Austin Sevens, Trojans and Peugeot Quadrilettes around at speeds of up to 50mph, nubile women smothered the all-conquering victor with irrepressible adulation, and it was named Best Competitive Event of 2021 at the Royal Automobile Club Historic Awards. Really, it was.

After a break for 2022, so that the Long Car Race could be run in its stead, the Light Car Race is back for 2023. This year, it will be held at Donington, and the date for your diaries is 9th July. If you had so much fun last time that you want to come back, or you'd like to find out just what you missed, here's what you need to know:

• The race is a 40-minute race split between two drivers
• The first three cars to finish will be disqualified for trying too hard
• The fourth-, fifth- and sixth-placed cars will receive a magnum of Champagne which has been opened and half-drunk already
• The coveted Coupe de Longstone will be awarded to the first car to break down and to the car which performs the most spectacular breakdown
• The Coupe de Longstone is also a half-drunk magnum of Champagne

Lots of eager masochists are submitting their entries already, and confirmed so far are not one but two Bédélias.

Longstone Tyres is keen for European enthusiasts to take part as well, but acknowledges they may be put off if their national licensing requirements stipulate that they must be able to prove that they have completed a number of races before they are permitted to race in another country. The solution is to borrow the address of a friend in Britain, and then get an MSA British racing licence, which takes one day and costs £400 from themotorsportsschool.co.uk

Young enthusiasts should take the opportunity to enter, since the VSCC offers half-price race entry to under-30s, so motorsport doesn't get much more affordable. The standard entry fee for drivers is £70, which goes into club funds. The grid is paid for wholly by Longstone Tyres.

There you are then. If you're too flash for Formula One, and too louche for Le Mans, the Longstone Light Car Race needs you...
 

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