ABOUT

Our History

The Historic Racing Saloon Register was formed in1984 by Glen Maskell (who became the first Chairman until his death in 2003), Bob Sherring, Tony Castle-Miller and Phil Wight, who became the first committee. The HRSR was formed as the interest in all forms of historic motor sport was beginning to blossom. There was already a club promoting classic saloon car racing but the technical modifications they allowed were very restrictive and the founding HRSR group wanted the greater freedom to allow the use of sensible 'period' modifications to the cars - brakes, suspensions and engines, in particular - whilst retaining the originality of bodywork shape and materials (although lightweight fibre glass or aluminium was allowed for doors, bonnets and bootlids, provided the original outwards shape was retained).

The HRSR committee initially begged races with whatever organiser they could find - Aston Martin Owners Club (AMOC) and BRSCC before settling with BRSCC for a few seasons. However, their profile was mostly organising races for contemporary cars and HRSR races were a 'novelty' event on their programme. In 1995 the HRSR committee approached the HSCC to become part of their race series and the partnership has been a great success.

This approach to racing old touring cars hit a chord with competitors and spectators and grids rose from 8 or so cars in the early days to grids in the high twenties by the mid nineties. The cars are grouped in classes by engine size with minimum weights for each class and weights are regularly reviewed by the committee to ensure that those in the lower capacity classes such as Imps and Minis can mix it with the larger capacity cars such as Ford Anglias, Lotus Cortinas and Jaguars - particularly if it is wet!

Around 1998 the club reorganised the class structure to allow Appendix K modified cars to run in the series in their own class structure. These cars are generally lower powered than their HRSR class equivalent and also have to retain their original suspension and braking systems but have the ability to race at their 'homologated' weight, which is usually lighter than their HRSR class equivalent model. For instance a Lotus Cortina prepared to HRSR regulations has a minimum weight of 825 kg whereas the Appendix K prepared Cortina weighs only 751 kg.

As the UK's best established and premier club for historic saloons, we are allied to the Historic Sports Car Club and compete for the Historic Touring Car Championship. Grid sizes averaged 25 last year and have been over 40 at some of the more prestigious events and the increasingly high profile of the HSCC gives us a good programme of races at all of the best circuits in the UK.

 Want to know more? Please use our contact form or join us for a Tea or coffee Etc at the next meeting for a chat!
New photo's kindly provide by @Mockford1959