GRR regulars will need no introduction to Nick Swift and his famous Minis. After the 73rd Members’ Meeting this clip of him chasing down far more powerful cars proved to be very popular indeed. As a result much is expected of him at the Revival …
However, as we’ve mentioned many a time in recent weeks, we expect this year’s St Mary’s Trophy races to be a bit special: Three 7 litre Ford Galaxies, some seriously rapid Lotus Cortinas, a bevvy of BMWs and a gorgeous Alfa Romeo Giulia (just for starters) stand between Mr Swift and the chance of silverware. But there is hope in the form of a rather handy driver who’s sharing pedalling duties in the two-part, two-driver race and that’s Karun Chandhok who raced in F1 for HRT and Lotus and who bagged an impressive sixth place at Le Mans in 2012. The pair were here testing recently.
‘It’s a shock to the system!’ he says of driving the Mini. ‘It moves around so much and bounces around. It’s very different to anything I’ve driven.’ This is of course quite understandable. Although he drove an E-Type Jaguar here a couple of years ago, at least it was powerful and rear-wheel-drive. ‘We don’t even have laptops!’ he smiles. ‘I’m going from digital to analogue but I’m still a racer at heart, still competitive. Both Nick and I want to do well.’ Speaking of his illustrious co-driver, he tells us ‘oh around here Nick is a bit special…’
Karun also admitted to watching a lot of Nick online to get a feel for the Mini. We imagine that this will be another video to add to his playlist.