.

the car junkie daily magazine.

.

Cortina Driver Gives a Quick Lesson On How to Avoid a Costly Vintage Racing Accident


Cortina Driver Gives a Quick Lesson On How to Avoid a Costly Vintage Racing Accident

In the 1960s, Lotus Cortinas were racing everywhere. In the early years of the British Saloon Car Championships, the lythe little Lotus-tuned Fords diced with classic Minis and hulking American Ford Fairlanes with equal aplomb. Today, you can still find Cortinas racing hard wheel-to-wheel in vintage races like this classic touring-car race that was part of the Masters Festival at Donington Park in England. And when one of a small pack of Cortinas drops a tire off at the bottom of the downhill esses—being a UK circuit, Donington has names for these corners so it’s from Craner Curves to the Old Hairpin—things get interesting.

The spinning car pirouettes all the way across the track, flashing past traffic and basically scooting backwards directly in front of another Cortina. That driver brakes just enough to keep from mashing the spinning car nose to nose and, if you hadn’t seen the first car spin from dropping a tire, you could almost think it was a carefully choreographed stunt.  The second angle really shows how closely both cars came to spending the rest of their weekend knocking out dents with the Clarkson Wrench.


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0

One thought on “Cortina Driver Gives a Quick Lesson On How to Avoid a Costly Vintage Racing Accident

  1. Chevy Hatin' Mad Geordie

    I suspect there are many.many more so-called Lotus Cortians racing these days than were ever produced. Take into account the ravages of time and the British weather and you would be lucky to have a tally into double figures!

    But that doesn’t take away from sticking a hot Lotus twin cam into a humble two door Cortina body shell and caning it on race tracks throughout the world – for how many humble sedans could be flung into corners with the inside front wheel a good 3 feet of the ground? Check that out if you don’t believe me – I was lucky enough to see both Jim Clark and Graham Hill make a mockery of the chicane at Croft Autodrome in NE England using that mad technique.

Comments are closed.