Just a couple of weeks after the Goodwood Members Meeting, we were back on the racetrack at the Donington Historic Festival. Taking place between the 2nd and 4th of May, this race demonstrates the determination and enthusiasm we strive for at P&K Thornton Restorations. We competed in two races over the weekend, the Motor Racing Legends Pre-63 GT 1-hour race and the Motor Racing Legends Pall Mall Cup. The Pall Mall Cup required 2 drivers for the two-hour race, they were our Managing Director at P&K Thornton, Ciprian Nistorica (Cip) and the legendary race driver, Grant Williams, who is well known for racing classic Jaguars and his entertaining driving at the Goodwood Revival.

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We were motivated to perform well following on from Goodwood, where we had a couple of issues with our race E-Type that needed ironing out before the Donnington Historic Festival, to deliver high performance and reliability. Between races, we dedicated some time to further work on our 1961 Jaguar E-Type, placing it on the rolling road to fine-tune its performance and ensure it's running at its absolute best. Our restoration technicians carried out mechanical work on the Jaguar in an effort to resolve the issues we encountered at Goodwood. Unfortunately, the problem wasn't fully resolved, as it resurfaced during one of our races at Donington.

Qualifiers for both races took place on Friday. Everything ran smoothly during the qualifiers, positioning towards the middle of the pack for both races. For the Motor Racing Legends Pre-63 race, we qualified 8th out of 16. Then 16th out of 25 for the Pall Mall Cup, both taking place the next day.

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On Saturday, we were eager to get back on the Donington Park circuit, the oldest active race circuit in the UK. This race featured a lot of well-known drivers such as Olly Bryant and Dario Franchitti, accompanied by a lot of well-prepared cars. Cip had a great start to the Pre-63 race, gaining a position in the rankings. However, after some small mistakes, we got knocked down a couple of positions. Halfway through the race, the car was handed to Grant. In a superb effort, he managed to regain a couple of places in the rankings, finishing 8th overall.

Between the races, our team put a tremendous amount of effort into having a fantastic turnaround from the Pre-63 race to the Pall Mall Cup. Although there was a one-hour gap between the Pre-63 race ending (4 PM) and the Pall Mall Cup beginning (5 PM), the E-Type had to be stored in a fenced-off area for 20 minutes after the race. The Jaguar cannot be touched by anyone during this time. This made our crew quite nervous that we might not get everything finished in time before the next race. This includes re-fuelling, changing the brake pads and preparing the race E-Type. Our mechanics did a fantastic job and managed to get everything ready on time.

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Once we made it to the starting line after the brisk turnaround for the Pall Mall Cup, Cip began the race. When Cip started there were some really fast cars ahead of him leaving us to battle it out with a Lotus, on paper, a faster car than our E-Type. Cip had a good head-to-head, keeping ahead of the Lotus for a couple of laps, before we ran into an issue, as our handbrake failed. That means the rear brakes were coming on and getting hot, therefore, the oil from the discs started to drip on the exhaust. Cip started to get a lot of smoke in the car which made it hard to breathe. When Cip made his pit stop and swopped with Grant Williams, the team managed to reset the handbrake eliminating the issue, so the brakes weren’t getting hot anymore. This allowed Grant to climb back up some of the positions that we lost because of this issue. Finished the race in the 17th position and 1st in our class and we were awarded a trophy from Motor Racing Legends for this achievement.

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Our team had a party after and celebrated this exciting experience, featuring the band Rick Parfitt Junior. Although, these couple of issues with the car that have cropped up at the Donington Historic Festival and Goodwood have been unusual for us. We are currently working on having everything fixed before attending the Silverstone GT&SCC at the end of May.

Thanks go to our friends and sponsors who made all this happen:

@sustainfuels

@bsmcartransport

@simplyperformance

@rowemotoroiluk

@turatellotrailersuk