Ian Conway leaves his MGB at home and heads to Belgium with a camera instead

In the world of historic motor racing, one of the must-do events for both spectators and drivers is the Spa Six Hours meeting. This takes place over a long weekend each September and features races for cars ranging from vintage Brooklands Bentleys and Bugattis to classic F1 cars like the JPS-Lotus and Saudia-Williams. The highlight of the meeting, though, is the Six Hours itself, which brings together GT and Touring cars of the type that raced at Le Mans, the Nurburgring and Spa in the early 1960s for an evocative endurance race running late into the night.

Having competed in the 2009 and 2010 Six Hours in my MGB, this year I decided to take a back seat and bring a friend along to spectate instead, while having a few Belgian beers and cheering on the other MG drivers.
We left for the Channel Tunnel bright and early on Thursday morning, and once we got to Belgium we decided to avoid the motorway and take the scenic route to Brussels. After ambling across country for an hour or so, we joined the motorway at Gent, headed around Brussels on the ring road and motored on to Spa, arriving at our B&B by the early evening.

After breakfast the following day, we drove to Stavelot along the old Spa circuit, which flows along public roads and includes the infamous Masta Kink between the farm houses which drivers used to take flat-out. The morning mist was still hanging in the valley surrounding the circuit, while all around, the skyline is dominated by the pines of the Ardennes forest. In Stavelot we visited the Spa museum, which has a small but valuable collection of historic racing cars including a Talbot Lago and a Gulf-Porsche 917. We then loaded up with provisions to keep us going over the weekend.

To read more about this MG read the January 2012 issue of MG Enthusiast - available here.