Vintage photo of the week (5)

Every picture tells a story – Vintage Rallycross photo of the week 41/2011

Among the first responses when the Guru started this feature was one asking for a pic of Tony Proctor’s Capri.  One of the most unusual and evocative cars ever used in Rallycross, Proctor used one of the 3.4-litre, 24v V6 ‘GAA’ race engines in the Capri, a car that was usually fast, often fragile but always spectacular. This photo is from May 6 1985, the third round of that year’s British Rallycross Championship, and my first ever visit to Croft where Proctor is caught bouncing through the old chicane.

Then living on the south coast of England in Sussex, I had seen the southern rounds of the BRC in 1983 and ’84 but decided to go to all events in 1985 and Croft was the first of the long journeys. Young and daft, I seriously underestimated how long the 300 mile (500km) trip would take in my Mk1 Escort and arrived at Croft in the small hours of Sunday morning, spending the rest of the night trying to sleep in the car [no fun when you are tall. I bought a tent after this].

In these digital days when you can shoot as many photographs as you want, I find it surprising that my output from this 600-mile round trip amounts to just three rolls of film. Worse still, they are 24-exposure rolls and only one is fully used; I have just 64 exposed frames from this event. Back then I had no appreciation of the value of quality lenses. The proprietary 70-200 zoom I had was, I think, a slow 4.5-5.6 lens. Knowledge of lenses would have been academic as I could not have afforded a fast Nikkor lens for my Nikon FM  anyway. The film is also a little grainy. While the technical quality of those 64 Croft pics is not great, what stands out now is the number of useable shots, and also the half-dozen or so that still stand out as being good.

As a pure Rallycross track, Croft then was more exciting than now when it is part of a multi-function 21st century race track. It’s surprising to see just how much things have changed in 26 years; just look at the spectators in this shot. Without Sunday trading there were fewer activities for the family on Sunday so crowds were often bigger. There is no real safety for the spectators either and they stand, or sit, on a small grassy bank with only a rope to mark where the spectator area stops and the race track begins.