19/08/2026
🏁British Autograss Series – Round 4 🏁
Now the dust has settled (no pun intended!), we would like to take the opportunity to say a massive thank you to everyone who played a part in Round 4 of the British Autograss Series.
Firstly, to all of the hard-working Wiltshire League members who have spent the past six months preparing our new race venue — we cannot thank you enough. We don’t think anyone could doubt the huge amount of time, effort and commitment that went into getting the venue ready, followed by everyone working tirelessly throughout the weekend to host Round 4.
A huge thank you also goes to all of the officials and volunteers who have worked alongside Wiltshire League over the two weekends. No matter what your role was, you gave up your own time to help provide the drivers registered to the British Autograss Series with a place to come together and race. For that, we are truly grateful. 🙏
We would also like to thank all of our sponsors, trade stands and supporters. Your continued support is hugely appreciated and plays an important part in making these events possible. 🙏
Unfortunately, we were unable to give you the full programme of racing that we had all hoped for. We are genuinely sorry for this and would like to thank everyone for their patience, understanding and support throughout the weekend. 🤗
We would also like to mention how well everyone cleared up after themselves. Rubbish was left bagged and grouped together, which made the enormous clean-up operation much easier for our volunteers. Thank you! 🙏
So, what happened with the track?
● We were offered a fantastic new, large venue that could become our new home and, importantly, give us the opportunity to host larger race meetings. (venues like this are increasingly difficult to find!)
● The new track was marked out and a stone-crushing machine was brought in, which initially worked extremely well.
● We then experienced a very wet winter. Despite this, the track surface came through looking very good and green.
● However, as the surface developed, stones began to reappear, so the stone-crushing machine was brought back in. This was followed by several extremely dry months, during which the track was regularly watered and rolled.
● With the ongoing drought, water availability became a major consideration. We had to be extremely careful with the water available and brought in water tankers at additional cost.
● Following all of the work carried out in the build-up to the meeting, we then had to carefully judge when to water and roll the track in the final days before racing.
● Unfortunately, despite our efforts, the loose top layer simply would not bind together or go down as hard as we needed it to.
● Following the first set of heats, work immediately began to remove as much of the loose material as possible.
● By Sunday, the track was considerably better, although we fully appreciate it was still nowhere near perfect.
● Further track work was carried out before the finals, and we were thankfully able to enjoy some fast and furious racing. 🏁
● On Monday morning, the remaining loose material was removed and we are now thankfully down to a completely hard surface.
● Our next step is to obtain suitable stone-removing equipment to deal with the remaining stones before allowing the winter weather to work its way into the hard surface.
We hope this helps everyone understand the circumstances we faced and the work that went on both before and throughout the weekend.
One thing we would ask everyone to remember when commenting or posting on social media is that we are all human.
The people behind our clubs, leagues and series are volunteers who give up huge amounts of their own time because they are passionate about Autograss racing. We all want exactly the same thing — to provide drivers and spectators with the best possible race meetings.
Sometimes, despite an enormous amount of preparation and hard work, things simply don’t come together as we would like. It certainly wasn’t through a lack of trying.
As a club and league, we will always endeavour to do our very best and help wherever we can. We demonstrated that commitment in 2024 when we stepped forward to host two rounds to help ensure that drivers registered for the British Autograss Series had a series to compete in.
We will learn from this weekend, continue working on our new venue and move forward.
Lastly, but by absolutely no means least, a huge thank you to Simon Bentley for his help and support throughout what was a very challenging weekend out on the track, and to Richard Jumbo Williams, who joined our team at very short notice on Saturday afternoon to help carry out the essential track work. Your help was very much appreciated. 🙏
Thank you once again to everyone who raced, volunteered, officiated, supported, sponsored and helped us throughout the weekend.
We now wish Severn Valley Club all the very best for Round 5 of the British Autograss Series. 🏁
See you all trackside! 🏁
Athelstan Autograss Club
Bredon Hill Autograss
Wiltshire Autograss League
Yate & Sodbury Autograss Club
