BMW 3.0 CSL (e9)

One of my Indian colleagues had won some tickets for the Historic Grand Prix in Zandvoort on the 31st of August but not really being interested in cars he offered them to me. A couple of family petrolhead friends went with me in the BMW. Parking was a nightmare, although if it had been beach weather it could have been a lot worse. We ended up parking at Bloemendaal a couple of kilometres up the coast. A good half hour walk back found us at an extremely good event with some excellent examples of all sorts of racing history although wasting so much time trying to find a parking place we had missed most of the morning’s action. The afternoon started with the F2 cars which were pretty interesting as they don’t have it any more but somewhere later in the afternoon we seem to have missed the F1 cars, I’m not sure that it actually took place. My favourite to see on the track has to be the old Group C cars from the 80’s, a class that became the LMP1/2 of the present LeMans series. Absolutely fabulous, old Porsche 962’s, a Jaguar XJR16, some big Nissans and even a couple of Spices. There was an assortment of DRM saloons, the precursor to the present DTM and this was one of the few classes where I didn’t hear the British National Anthem for the winning car. To be honest I think a good 80% of the competitors were British anyway, although I did spot a few Dutch registrations, some French and some German on the transport vehicles in the paddock. No good photo’s of the Group C’s as they were a little inaccessible in the main pits. There are couple shots of a damaged Nissan before being loaded at the end of the afternoon.

Weather was excellent as can be seen in these shots of the circuit.

Here are a few links to some video I shot of some of the races.

Tried to catch some of the Pre ’61 GP Cars from the main stand. We then came to the conclusion that it would be better to find a better location.

Moving to a vantage point between Hunserug and the S-Bocht we got some much better shots. This is the Historic F2 Cars in action.

Next up were the Group C/GTP Cars.

Then we moved on to the Pre ’66 GP Cars.

The afternoon’s racing closed with the DRM Klassik-Pokal. This included a couple of fire breathing BMW M1’s, some Porsche 911’s & 935’s, BMW 2002’s and even a Corvette. I can’t believe that someone would run a Corvette from that period in a road race, drag racing maybe… It sounded like a fart in a large plastic bucket and if you look closely at the video (at around 45 secs) you can see it wallowing into the S-Bocht. Handling? – I don’t think so.