Chris Harris and the Lola T292 show promise despite Brands Hatch retirement

We’ve been going round in circles on and off the circuit recently. The London Historic Trophy at Brands Hatch and the ‘debut’ of our Lola T292, which my historic go-to guys, the legendary Pearsons Engineering, have been building for me. The run-up to this entailed hurdles: commentary for the Le Mans 24 Hours and the Monaco Grand Prix, and… the Velocity Invitational at Sonoma in California.

The invite had come directly from the event, which aims to create an American Goodwood at Sonoma. It’s an old-school circuit and an old-school entry list to nowhere near FIA regs. My ride was a Shelby Mustang GT350 with affable Californian Matt Johnson, inset; to quote him, the car was “exactly as Mr Shelby delivered it”. These would normally blitz a breathless FIA Mini, but in the US not so!

A vicious swarm of turbocharged and in some way manipulated A-Series engines were the bizarre class of the field on squelchy Hoosiers, at a circuit which rewards manoeuvrability. The best of these was eventual winner Endaf Owens, chassis builder and fully paid-up member of the Mini Mafia. Also out was a Camaro that shook your steering wheel as it pulled alongside – through straight pipes that a mouse could live in. We finished third, and then it was to Brands, a similar circuit in a very different place.

Chris Harris was sharing our Lola T292 with me in the 2-Litre Sportscars race, and he drove like an absolute gem. It looks cool – I’m really happy with how it turned out – and we qualified third, a good effort for a new car. The Kim Kardashian of car reviewers took second at the start, zooming around behind another T292, and then the clutch stopped clearing, and eventually he was stuck in gear. Out of the race before I climbed in. Shame, but heartening.

Those 2-litre cars are ridiculously good. You’re into high-speed corners with a little dab on the brakes, and they have enough downforce to help, but you can still slide them, all with a BDG engine revving to nine-grand, on ‘not so heavily loaded’ indestructible Avons.

I also got thrown into a BMW E30 M3 touring car at Brands with Amspeed. It’s a different experience to the Lola but equally cool. On two wheels most of the time, and if you turn in too fast they’re so low and narrow you’ll flip it over. With a dog box and ABS, which sort of works, they’re good fun. We got a sixth and a seventh, with Tom Houlbrook sharing.

We had our Mini Cooper S out too, with Nick Swift partnering me. We qualified second of the Minis in the Pre-66 Touring Cars, and Nick did a good job at the start. I came out behind another Mini, and got walled on the straight on the way down to Surtees in a bizarre manoeuvre. The poor Mini is looking sorry for itself, and needs to go to, you guessed it… chassis builder Endaf, the Welshman I raced in California, to be ready for Mini Festival in August.

“Hi mate, remember what I tried to do to you in that Mustang? Yeah, sorry about that… Anyway, how busy are you at the moment?”