BHP SHOW!

The bank holiday weekend saw the eleventh outing for the BHP show at Lydden Hill race track in Kent. Just before the weekend, the promoter Jay made a post on Facebook, asking if anyone knew of an experienced commentator for their show on the Monday, since theirs had dropped out.

Someone tagged me, I replied and GOT THE GIG!

It was a brilliant day and I was in the poshest commentary box ever. It was built in 2014 to replace what had been a double decker bus! I even broke out the lovely microphone I bought to use for such things and took it with.

A massive thanks to the BHP show for the chance and I have to say, it was about as cool a democratisation of race track use as I have ever seen. The utter genius is to negotiate with the motor sport governing body, the track owning company AND a bunch of individualistic show-going fuel heads, all at once!

Dan Goodyer https://www.facebook.com/dan.goodyer is the man who devised Battle Sprints. This is two cars, each from a standing start. One is at the start/finish line, the other is half way exactly around the track. They get one lap to warm up tyres and brakes and then they line up.

They launch and which ever car gets back to their own personal start finish line first, to complete two laps, is the winner. It is time and speed and proper racing.

The commentary box was next to an upstairs VIP area that housed three chaps, each at least in their seventies, who were there from the motorsport folks, “to ensure the racing was fair and clean’. They chatted all day mostly about their and their friends’ medical conditions, but also the racing from time to time.

I did my thing and got all hooty and excited at the end, even making the old Klaxon horn noise, and they actually got excited and animated, too….while finding me somewhat amusing, I reckon.

Battle Sprints flippin’ ROCKS!