Tour Britannia 2008, this year’s three-day tour for pre-1976 race, rally and touring cars, will start from Cambridge on Tuesday 2nd September. The traditional format combines a race category (offering full-blown races and rally stages) with a regularity event – this latter competing over the same circuits and stages, but with accurate timekeeping the key criterion.

The Tour will head for Snetterton circuit for the first races, while speed tests will take place on the proving grounds of the Lotus Group at Hethel, and the 650 acres at Bruntingthorpe Airfield. Wednesday September 3rd will then see action at the Mallory Park race circuit, before the Tour moves on to Arbury Hall, near Nuneaton in Warwickshire, the ancestral home of Viscount and Viscountess Daventry. The extensive grounds of this originally Elizabethan house will provide two runs for the competitors, presenting them with some picturesque ‘hazards’ to tackle.



The next venue on the schedule is Cornbury Park, near Witney in Oxfordshire, a location mentioned in the Domesday Book as a supplier of venison to the King… From Cornbury, the Tour moves on to Silverstone, before returning to Coombe Abbey for the night halt. On the final day, Thursday September 4th, the first speed test is at Swynnerton in Staffordshire, with a rally stage on an old British Army training area that was once a Royal Ordnance factory – and is now home to the Royal Fusiliers.



General knowledge enthusiasts, however, might know Swynnerton for another reason… it’s apparently one of only two locations in the UK where traffic drives on the right (as it’s used as to familiarise soldiers with Continental motoring). Classic Driver readers will no doubt be eminently familiar with the other. If not, the answer is, in true quiz fashion, at the bottom of the page.



From Swynnerton, the action moves to races on the Oulton Park circuit in Cheshire before returning to a ‘very lively’ 2007 venue, Cholmondley Castle. The organisers have expressed the hope that ‘the old hands will tell the new boys where the gate is and there will thus be less activity off the Tarmac’. Then it’s back to Swynnerton, before the finish at Coombe Abbey.

Entries are still coming in, although the organisers say they are now very close to the 60 mark… so get your skates on.

Tour Britannia Ltd: Tel +44 (0) 1295 268888 Fax +44 (0) 1295 268828
General e-mail: [email protected]
Entries: [email protected]

*Answer to quiz question: traffic drives on the right down the short road leading to the Savoy Hotel in London.

Text: Charis Whitcombe
Photos: Tour Britannia