Here’s a couple of laps of the iconic Donington Park circuit from summer 2015 alongside Andy McKenna. The race is the two driver Guards Trophy, part of the HSCC calendar. The car is the pretty Elva Mk7, powered by a Lotus Twin Cam. Owned by Robi Bernberg and co – driven by Andy McKenna, this was their first race together with the car.
McKenna says, “That particular day we had to use the longer final drive hence my strange choice of gears at certain places…At the end of the day people say ‘ oh it’s never 3rd for that, it’s always 4th’ etc etc but I’m a firm believer that you can drive round certain things if your prepared to adapt…”
Despite the less than perfect gearing, the pair managed to climb to second in class, with McKenna closing on the Lotus 23B ahead, soon after passing the Lotus, falling oil pressure made him decide that discretion was preferrable to valour and he retired the car with a few laps remaining “We were both furstrated, for sure, but there’s little point in continuing. It’s not as if we were challenging for the final round of an entire championship, we were just running to see what kind of pace we had.”
While the Elva may be considered by some to be inferior to the Lotus equivalent in sports racing, the Elva can still fight above it’s weight when set up well. Robi and Andy will be out in the Elva again this year and we’ll be covering more of their racing season here, so be sure to join our email list for more stories and features.
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