All participants survived the latest AMOC Speed Series outing, this time to Lydden Hill in Kent, which was a good thing. I have banged on about its delights as a circuit in the past in this column, and have even added in, for the curious, the etymology and historical significance of Lydd, or Lyd, so I won't do it again.
But there were some ominous omens early on, which ate away at me, and my confidence.
Firstly, we were outnumbered by three men from Yorkshire, or The Three Tykes, which was obviously a concern. And before I get hauled up before the beak, according to the Yorkshire Society, this is the correct nomenclature for gentlemen from this part of the world: you can ask Claude if you don't believe me.
We were quite surprised to see them to be honest: one would have thought that holding the event so far from God's Own County would have put them off, but no: Peter Watts, Tom Whittaker and Peter House all turned up with their trailers and their cars and their inscrutable Yorkshire smiles. Meanwhile, I represented the Southern contingent, coming all the way from The Smoke as we used to call it in the good old days, and Guy Staudt represented the international side (he and his Emotional Support Partner, Huguette, come all the way from Luxembourg). Guy and I drove to the circuit, by the way: no trailers for us: we are old-skool...
Secondly, Huguette was still reading that book in German that last appeared at Goodwood: “Alle Toden Fliegen Hoch – Amerika”, or “All the Dead Fly Up – Amerika.” I don't know why, but for some reason this left me feeling un-nerved. I know her fans will be disappointed with her performance in the reading of German department, and, had they been there, would surely have shared my disquiet.
Thirdly, there were no Spitfires. Not a single one appeared all day. Not even the whisper of one, which is odd because they always seem to follow us around in the South. Like the examination of the entrails of the chickens which, no doubt, the pagan High Priest, Lydd, would have sacrificed and studied in such circumstances, I felt the lack of Spitfires to be inauspicious.
But laying all that aside, which fabulous Aston Martins had your five fearless friends brought with them?
Peter Watts was in his ever more beautifully presented Sea Green DB2/4 Mkll – now so pampered that, as mentioned above, he now takes it to events in a covered trailer. He might even tuck it in at night and read it bedtime stories for all I know. Also, I could not help noticing the car had sprouted three absolutely enormous air-gobbling twin-choke Weber go-faster-than-Nige carburettors: is that right, or fair? “All legit and within the rules”, Peter rather sniffily assured me.
Also down from the Mists of the North via the A1 (I overheard one of their secret cabals) was Tom Whittaker with his Aston Martin GT4...but hang on a sec... that is no Aston! Good heavens, is that a Porsche? Ladies and Gentlemen, yes, it was. A 718 Cayman 4.0 PDK (or Pretty Damned Kwick – Ed). And it was yellow. Extremely yellow. Surely this was some sort of sacrilege, punishable in many interesting and painful ways, probably by the ghostly high priest of Lydd himself? We were polite about the thing, of course, feigned interest in it, and asked about its gearbox and its tyres and how many torques it had and the nature of its power delivery: we are not complete savages. But really, Tom, a Porsche? And it was nearly new as well!
Peter House also had a GT4, but thankfully, on closer inspection, it turned out to be a proper Aston with the right engine in the right place and without a spoiler the size of a medium-sized dining-room table nailed to the back of it. But although road-registered, the GT4 Vantage is still a serious.
bit of track-focussed kit, which used to be owned by none other than....Tom Whittaker: more wheels within Yorkshire wheels. You always know with Peter House if he is on a mission, because he nonchalantly takes off his steering wheel and hangs it on a special little hook in the cockpit, and he did exactly that. Just to intimidate the rest of us.
Then we had Guy Staudt, in his immaculately presented, road-going (if not entirely standard) white V8 Vantage (with the Sportshift 3). And I had the old DB2/4 Mkll, no paint, no spoilers, no turbos or sportshifts, no bedtime stories, and looking a bit second-hand from its 3,896 mile rally to Lisbon and back last month and dribbling quite a lot of oil onto the tarmac in the paddock, if truth be told.
Anne Reed had set us our target times – except that, since Tom had brought the unspeakable Yellow Porker with no prior data to go on for this circuit, his target time was set as his practice time: an open invitation to sandbagging if you ask me, but what else could Anne have done?
In the morning, the weather was dry and overcast, but over lunchtime, the sun came out and things got quite warm. Huguette stopped even pretending to read her book and sunbathed, whilst Guy excitedly announced (using his 007 infra-red temperature measuring device that his fellow competitors and Q had presented him with last year) that the tarmac was now 49 degrees Celsius. “We will be having the opportunity for Quick Times, Gentlemen, Quick Times.” Who says we don't take all this pretty seriously?
So how did we all fare? It was Peter House in the GT4 Vantage who ended up taking scratch. His practice time of 89.84 was pretty tidy, but over his subsequent four timed runs he kept up a steady improvement to finish on 84.38. There were precious few road-registered motors that went much faster than this on the day. Second was Guy, who managed 86.31, and just edged ahead of his target time of 86.49, also on his last run. In fact, he was so happy that even did a little Luxembougischer jig when he clocked the result. I am sure Huguette was relieved. She might even get time to finish her book.
Tom in the Yellow Peril was also very quick and moved up from a practice time of 91.98 to a very respectable 87.75. He had not driven this car that much, or so he said, and therefore I expect him to become an increasing threat over the course of the season, if he has the chuztpah to continue to bring the thing out....and since Tom has chuzpah in spades, I have no reason to think that he won't.
Seeing the threat posed by Peter Watts' enormous Webers, I decided to go the whole hog, and save weight by removing my spare wheel, which as owners of DB2/4s know, involves much contortion and swearing. Fat lot of good it did me. I just could not get past the target time that Anne had set of 103 seconds, my best being on the second timed run of 104.38. I tried different lines and braking points after that, scaring myself silly each time, but to no avail. 103 seconds remained stubbornly out of reach.
But at least I spiked Peter Watts' guns: indeed, it might have been me who casually suggested that he could try taking a bit more speed through a particular corner, and that his entry to the same corner had looked a bit slow to me, at least from where I was sitting. Ha! He took the bait, and his bold late braking led him into a spin and a DNF – most entertaining for us, but I am sure quite heart-stopping for him. Fortunately, no physical damage was done. And so it was that he beat his target time of 113.89 with an impressive 108.75 from his first timed run, but I still beat him on scratch. Ha! Even with my puny little SUs. Ha!
The event was immaculately organised by Roger Grimes and his team at the Borough 19 Motor Club, whose guests we were. Roger did mention at the prize giving that, whilst it was always lovely to have the Aston Martins at their events, he was quite surprised to find that one of them was a Porker in drag. Just sayin', @ Tom Whittaker.
You can see more photographs in this Photo Album:
2026 Lydden Hill Sprint
Report by Nigel Grice (below with his trophy)
Photographs by Guy Staudt and Nigel Grice