Nuvolari himself could not have done better. Gillett just wrung its neck with an awesome display of sideways driving

We’ve got a proper Silverstone Classic back at last. Right through the weekend, the magical atmosphere was there again, thanks to proper planning by Motion Works. Word had obviously got around as there was a strong crowd every day. If the Classic keeps going like this, the last weekend of every July will draw huge attendances to Silverstone.

Having attacked the loss of the old Abbey Corner for this meeting in a recent column, I was expecting drivers to make rude remarks about having to use the car park-style chicane in its place. I must admit that none did but I still don’t like it one little bit, so there!

As it turned out, most of the races at the Classic were tightly contested. Even the two-driver race for Pre-war Sports Cars was unexpectedly thrilling. It didn’t look that way at the start, when Simon Hope stroked away into a huge lead with Peter Neumark’s Alfa. Halfway through the hour it looked all sewn up, but we hadn’t reckoned with Charles Gillett, who’d just taken over a 2-litre Frazer Nash.

Nuvolari himself could not have done better. Gillett just wrung its neck right round the circuit with an awesome display of sideways driving on the ragged edge, but never over it. Eyes were glued to the screens when he wasn’t directly in sight. With Neumark himself now pressing on in the leading Alfa, Gillett was taking great chunks out of his advantage on every lap and, at the end, it was close. With another lap he’d have won.

The racing was inspiring but that was a bonus, not the vital point. Such on-track entertainment delights us but that alone is not what creates the buzz and pulls in the punters in their tens of thousands. As Motion Works has so wisely judged, there’s much more to it than that. They got it right, capturing the secret ingredients of a great event.

That was wonderful to see but, of course, everything is not perfect in our world. So far, historic racing has seemed immune to the financial woes we hear about all the time now, and long may that last. Perhaps a first sign of trouble, however, is the tendency of some organisers to try to pack too much action into their timetables. Presumably the idea is to minimise the cost of staging meetings, even by adding events for incongruous modern cars.

When the inevitable incidents delay an over-ambitious schedule, subsequent races are drastically shortened or cancelled, to the dismay of all concerned. I’m not sure what the answer is, short of a dreaded hike in entry fees, but there’s a regrettable trend here.

After the fuss last winter about illegal historic cars, things have gone very quiet on that front. That must be a good sign but I suspect minds have been focused more sharply than ever on the most arcane details of eligibility. Some organisers, it seems, would like to change history to make the racing closer. If a very strict interpretation of what is allowed is applied to a fast car and more leeway is given to a slower one, then those two cars might produce a more exciting contest now than they did in the past.
I hope that’s not happening, but I have heard rumours.

Reader Keith Kentish wrote to me about just such a point, a highly technical matter concerning a 1960s Italian car. With no position of authority I’m afraid I can’t help him there but, as a lifelong Bentley enthusiast, Keith also wondered whether I had ever had the pleasure of meeting Diana Barnato Walker, who died recently. Her autobiography Spreading My Wings is well worth reading.

As it happens I did meet her several times: on one occasion, taking tea in her large house in Surrey, I mentioned that my girlfriend was getting worried about the amount of time I was spending down there. The grand old lady fixed me with a glance, then declared firmly: ‘She should be.’

But this is meant to be about historic racing, so let’s have a final word on the proper subject. Now that the FIA’s diversionary fuss has died down, we must all wonder what plans this august body might have next for historic motor sport. Despite their best efforts, I believe there are still some genuine old cars taking part in these events but the question on everybody’s lips now is: What’s the difference between Benny Hill and Max Mosley? The answer, of course: Max makes us laugh.