National novelties: Superbike star Guintoli on four wheels and Chevrolet Lumina

From two to four wheels: Sylvain Guintoli

Sylvain Guintoli, the 2014 World Superbike champion, made a return to four-wheel action at the Birkett Six Hour Relay race at Silverstone last Saturday.

The French driver’s previous car racing experience comprised Radical Challenge appearances in 2016 but, in the Birkett, he drove for the Capture Motorsport team in a VW Golf TCR shared with Andrew Shephard.

REPORT: All the best action from an eventful Birkett Relay

“The first time I heard about the event was when my best mate [Shephard] entered the race, and we decided to go at it together,” explained the 40-year-old. “It is great because you can come with your mates and have a lot of fun on-track.”

Guintoli drove a stint late in the classic Silverstone endurance contest, setting the team’s fastest lap of the race and bringing the squad home in fifth position on scratch, as well as being the first non-Radical team.

He hopes to take in more car racing in 2023, subject to finding time around racing and commitments to BT Sport, for whom he is part of the MotoGP coverage.

Unusual car: Chevrolet Lumina

Short acquired the Lumina after seeing it advertised on Facebook

Photo by: Steve Jones

Le Mans racer Martin Short and European Le Mans Series champion Rob Garofall shared a rather unusual car in the Birkett last weekend: Short’s newly acquired Chevrolet Lumina V8.

“I saw it on Facebook two weeks ago – it has a Chevrolet engine in, like the Mosler, so it appealed to me and was a bit of a bargain,” said Short, who formed part of the Very Random Racers squad that finished 40th on handicap.

“It raced in a one-make series in Bahrain in about 2005, and its previous owner restored it to its original condition. It needs a bit of work because it is awesome in the wet, but terrible in the dry.”

Short – who previously raced in the Birkett in a Rover 216 GTI in the early 1990s – plans to prepare the car for racing with his sons Morgan and Marcus in 2023, after he limped out of Saturday’s race with a tyre failure. The event was Garofall’s first race since he secured the 2018 ELMS LMP3 title for RLR Motorsport.

Celebrating a 50-year career: Pete Richings

Clubmans veteran Richings bowed out after over half a century of racing, and was joined on the grid at Donington by his fellow MSVR competitors for a photoshoot

Photo by: Joy Richings

Ending a racing career spanning 51 years, of which 41 were in Clubmans sportscars, Pete Richings finished fifth in Saturday’s MotorSport Vision Racing championship finale at Donington Park in his Mallock Mk30PR.

Fellow competitors marked the occasion with a surprise celebratory photo session on the grid for the 71-year-old, hooked on the racing bug by a visit to Goodwood with his father on Easter Monday, 1956.

Highlights from 500+ races, alongside professional work at Jaguar Land Rover (which spawned Clubmans’ Rover K/MG X-Power engine era), were the Mineral Improvements championship in 1988 and Sports 1600 title in 2016.

He was also a proud member of Chris Hart’s Hart Attacks team, which won three Birkett Relay races, on handicap in 1996 and scratch in 1999 and 2001.

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