Our second race outing of the year took place on Sunday 29 May at the Masters Historic Festival at Brands Hatch. We took part in the Top Hat Raceday’s Cloth Cap and XK Challenge on the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit.

After an epic journey down the M1 and M25 on Friday afternoon (5 hours in Bank Holiday traffic, how dedicated are we?!) the hospitality unit and support vehicle made camp in readiness for an early start on Saturday. The forecast was for rain and we were all prepared for it but the day started off quite nicely!

Track conditions for qualifying were bright and dry for the 1.19 miles of the Indy circuit. Our XK looked awesome coming through Clearways and Clark Curve from our viewing point on Brabham Straight. The session went well once again with no traffic or yellow flags; driving standards were very good. The car handled fantastically and with a 58.4sec lap Jim was 6th on the grid for the race.

Thank you to Alex Cleland for the use of his photographs.

Grey clouds loomed as race time approached and we donned the macs! For the race we watched from the bottom of Paddock Hill Bend to see the cars come round and down the first corner going up Hailwood Hill into Druids Bend. This was where Jim was held up on the first lap and lost a place. Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone in particular for us to “race” against for the 40 minute race, with Jim being over 2.5 seconds quicker than the nearest XK120 and over a second slower than the first four cars (an AC Cobra, Lotus Elan 26R, Jaguar E-Type and Corvette Stingray). A pitstop window meant that everyone had to come in and during this stage Jim was even P1! After his stop though he was back in 7th place and with no need to push he cruised to the end to finish in the same position.

A soggy Tester camp came away from Kent happy with the day’s events. The rain made the race .. interesting and our ‘Louise’ (that’s our XK’s name for new readers!) handled supremely in conditions that were completely new to her.

Thanks to the Tester Team, all at Brands Hatch, the marshalls and The Master’s Team for a great weekend.

Claire Tester