[woodcote]

   

The WHO Birkett Relay is an opportunity to run a bunch of our favourite WHO/digital classes in a four-hour team race. It borrows a lot from the real Birkett event - a quirky, but quite magnificent format that has run since 1951. The race currently runs at Silverstone each year, organised by the 750 Motor Club.

The basic idea of the relay is that each team runs several cars during the event - a handicap system meaning a vast array of cars appear on the track at the same time and no-one quite knows who has won until after the chequered flag has fallen.

Our WHO version of the Birkett relay will simplify things a bit - at least for the first year. Over four hours, each team will race one car from four different WHO classes - a mix that can change each year.

To ensure the race gets off to a good start in 2023 - and to adjust to a few of our car-owners being otherwise engaged next week - we have made a decision to run four all-time WHO/digital favourites in the relay...

   

All the class regs can be found in our 2023 WHO/digital Guide pdf available here: http://www.whoracing.org.uk/who_digital.html

Doors will open at 10am for practice, with two Goodwood classes - the TT Celebration and Sussex Trophy - running in short-format races from 10.30 to 11.30am so everyone gets a chance to warm-up for the big event. A second practice session runs up to midday, when the first hour of the inaugural Birkett Relay will start.

Our six teams won't be based on driver rankings - we've encouraged anyone who wants to form a team to do so. There will be some loaning of cars across teams - and nothing in the rules to say that the same car can't be run by different teams in different hours. The only cars that must run together are the Slot.it Group Cs, which will make up hour two.

Each leg of the relay will be set up as a 58-minute race in RCS64, allowing for a two-minute change of teams' cars - the new car starting from the piece of track the last car finished. Each hour is split into three 20 minute stints, with drivers able to double or triple stint if they want to. However, the total of twelve stints must be equally divided between each team's drivers.

Simon is working on a 1:32 scale Silverstone layout for Saturday - a track plan will be posted when it's ready.