06/10/2026
An update from the Begg Boys (Scott & Allan), who have completed the grand tour offshore...
Last weekend was the Benjafield's 500 race at Estoril in Portugal.
Unfortunately, the two-car Bentley team was back to one car as Martin Dippie had to return to NZ unexpectantly.
Allan & I piloted the 8-litre Bentley in one-hour driving stints and finished the race ninth out of 30 with the big Bentley running faultlessly over the eight hours.
In fact, the car drove to Portugal from England, did the race and will then be driven back to England!!
The weekend just passed was a different event totally. The GT3 Revival Class was on the same card as GT3 World Challenge (GT3 World level event) plus McLaren & Lamborghini support classes.
Our 2013 Porsche 997 GT3R was one of three 997 cars in a class of 18. Free practice on Thursday ended with a clutch failure, luckily, we had a spare and the boys whipped out the gearbox and replaced the clutch on Thursday night.
Mother nature played her hand, as we had wet and dry sessions on Friday.
She got very angry on Saturday as the heavens opening in the middle of race one and it was red flagged.
The race was not restarted, and the circuit was shut due to local civil defence rain warnings (all roads were shut 8pm until 2pm Sunday!)
Team Begg was then awaiting the organisers' updates and heading to the track late morning.
The devastation along the riverbank was huge as well as 10m3 skips littered along roadways due to flooding.
Racing got underway at 2.30pm in warm and dry conditions.
I started in eighth, had a good first stint and came into the pits for the driver change in sixth place.
Al did the second stint (TV coverage showed the reverse) and had a nice clean run to end the race in seventh.
Racing is now complete and the car is ready to be shipped home.
We think Southland weather is bad; I have been in Barcelona for seven days over the last three weeks and have had five civil defence warnings over rain!!
