Silverstone Classic
- Thread starter Diddums
- Start date
I'm going again this year, stayed in the Northampton Hilton last year but this year the prices are much higher and I couldn't be bothered staying in Milton Keynes so I'm camping instead. I'm also going on my own so it won't be as lonely.
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Just posted this elsewhere, my view.
Sadly for me it isn't a race meeting like Goodwood. It's a place for people to meet, look at some cars, do a bit of shopping and eat and drink. That is of course fine and I enjoyed spending time with friends fun as always. However at 65 quid a head plus another 50 a head in nosh and drinks it needs to be better racing which was often pale imitations of historic racing with rag tag grids racing on a track where they look like ants as you're so far away. I walked 12 miles around the place a few times and outside the centre old pits areas it was dead. All the cars you want to see were where the masses weren't in the new pits. Also a Spitfire air display that lasted 2 passes and an F1 demonstration that had 7 cars for 3 laps mainly 40 seconds off the pace was a joke. I had a great day but frankly that was **** all to do with Silverstone.
Sadly for me it isn't a race meeting like Goodwood. It's a place for people to meet, look at some cars, do a bit of shopping and eat and drink. That is of course fine and I enjoyed spending time with friends fun as always. However at 65 quid a head plus another 50 a head in nosh and drinks it needs to be better racing which was often pale imitations of historic racing with rag tag grids racing on a track where they look like ants as you're so far away. I walked 12 miles around the place a few times and outside the centre old pits areas it was dead. All the cars you want to see were where the masses weren't in the new pits. Also a Spitfire air display that lasted 2 passes and an F1 demonstration that had 7 cars for 3 laps mainly 40 seconds off the pace was a joke. I had a great day but frankly that was **** all to do with Silverstone.
People only went where the shuttle busses too them. I was on the outside of becketts with about 3 other people and that was it. Most of the crowd is classic car owners who treat it more like a car show than a race event. It was good and I saw the cars I wanted but for a day's racing I'd rather go to a smaller event like the masters historic at Brands, which was only £21 for the main race day.
I don't know if I can be bothered with today, it's chucking it down again and I'm still drying out from Friday. Diabolical.
I don't know if I can be bothered with today, it's chucking it down again and I'm still drying out from Friday. Diabolical.
Silverstone in my mind had never looked after its punters since I first went in 1979 for the GP till yesterday. You sit in a cheap stand or stand on a badly made banking and you can admire the lovely BRDC building or new Wing pits and all that does is emphasise how utter crap the rest of the place is. At least they have toilets but I can't help but feel they take the pee with fence after fence and half arsed viewing facilities 70 percent of which were shut off yesterday. It's a poor place to watch motor racing and that's sad as once it was great.
It is a car club meet not a motor race in my book and that's fine, but not at 65 quid a head plus another 50 per for food and drink. I knew people racing there and had a good day due to a couple of things I was able to do but I went for motor racing first and foremost and that was poor. Having done the revival and some epic historic events in years gone by you realise just how poor an event it is. Shame.
It is a car club meet not a motor race in my book and that's fine, but not at 65 quid a head plus another 50 per for food and drink. I knew people racing there and had a good day due to a couple of things I was able to do but I went for motor racing first and foremost and that was poor. Having done the revival and some epic historic events in years gone by you realise just how poor an event it is. Shame.
It would have been a fair bit cheaper if they didn't have Status Quo in the evening, and that was just another chance to fleece people for money for food and drink.
I guess that's what you get with something organised by an events company and not a race organiser.
Spectating seems to get worse and worse.
I guess that's what you get with something organised by an events company and not a race organiser.
Spectating seems to get worse and worse.
Elf and Safe T
Safer to have people clambering over each other in a big pile
. They have strange logic if that's their reason.Silverstone is a GP track, it REALLY doesn't care about being a track that people spectate at and it has always seen race fans as people that need to be accommodated rather than served well. When I went to my first race there, the 1979 British GP, the first ever Williams victory, I stood with my mum and dad on the old Abbey straight and all I saw was 70 laps of crash helemets and roll bars. It was terrible but we were at least close to the track and didn't have to look through fences. In 1981 when it returned (1980 was Brands) we took a seat in the stands on the start finish straight, which where much closer to the track back then, if still crappy quality. I remember walking around the back of the pits on the Saturday and Sunday and was able to get to the back of the garages. I stood there watching Gilles and Pironi talk, the 2 of them and me and my dad just listening. I walked where I wanted. There were no toilets it seemed, there were massively expensive foods but it was a really fast track I could walk around completely and at all places I was right by the track and, bar Abbey straight, have a great view.
Today I can pee in many many toilets, but everything else is broken.
Today I can pee in many many toilets, but everything else is broken.
I thought that, but many of the open ones were not staffed. Stowe was completely shut, it was a ghost town down there.
Oulton is good too, still has some great close to action places with no fences, but the best (and sadly most dangerous) is Goodwood.