Davis Langdon's clients and staff scrape their way around a muddy Castle Combe to raise money for charity.
Quantity surveyors may be the mild mannered men and women of construction but put them in a souped up racing car and they’ll screech and slide round bends with the best of them.
This was certainly the case at a high-octane event organised by multidisciplinary QS Davis Langdon at the Castle Combe racing circuit. Staff and clients realised their Schumacher fantasies when they went wheel to wheel in Formula Fords, Lotus Elises and race ready Ford Focuses.
The day got off to a soggy start when the skidpan session was cancelled because of rain. Apparently it was just too skiddy, which makes you wonder why sailing regattas aren’t cancelled more often for being too wet.
With the rain easing the would-be racers warmed up in relatively tame Ford Focus hatchbacks before quickly progressing onto single seat Formula Ford racing cars.
Driving these super sensitive and twitchy racers fast on the sodden track was challenging stuff. Overtaking slower drivers was either accomplished by blasting past them on the straight section of track or waiting until they spun out into the muddy outfield.
The glamorous Lotus Elise roadster proved to be even more fickle than the Formula Fords. At one point spectators were treated to the squeal of tortured rubber on Tarmac followed by the inevitable crunch as someone stuffed an Elise into a crash barrier. Fortunately Davis Langdon’s driving credentials remained intact as the red-faced culprit turned out to be a client.
The grand finale was a presentation for the top drivers of the day. Quite a few of the winners had mud on their faces eerily evoking the spirit of bygone drivers like Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio.
The afternoon's racing was also beneficial for the Racing for a Cure Parkinson's disease charity, which was handed over a monster cheque to the tune of £1,626.72.
