Mallory Park Plum Pudding Races
Report and photos by Andrew and David Harbey
29 December 2024
The Plum Pudding Races at Mallory Park has become a Boxing Day tradition. Getting out the house, a bit of fresh air and a final race meeting of the year. Looking back, we’ve been every year since 2016 – bar the 2020 Covid cancellation. 2024 was to be no exception.
Rain and cold can be normal (apart from 2022 with glorious sunshine and a 45 minute queue just to get in). However, it was mist and fog that took over this year. You’d almost think you were at the Nurburgring by mistake …
A grey, misty, murky drive up the A5 had a two-minute glimpse of the sun and blue sky near Weedon, but that was it for the day. Mallory was shrouded in mist when we arrived just before 10am as the motorbikes were starting practice. Or, perhaps, stopping practice – due to a spillage of oil which took a fair while to sort out. Time to thank the marshals and circuit staff for their hard work.
Mallory Park Plumb Pudding Practice
As the saloon and then sports cars had their “practice” sessions behind the safety car. I was on the outside of the track at the exit of the Esses looking back with the 500mm prime on my Nikon D850.
Mallory Park Edwina’s
Andrew meanwhile was overlooking Edwina’s with the 70-200mm zoom on his recently acquired Nikon D780 for the first motorbike race.
I had stayed where I was to get a head on shot.
Panning a little gets the crowd in the background – and a good crowd it was too.
Andrew then joined me with his shorter focal length lens. Aaron Staniforth on #117 won the race.
Plumb Pudding Saloon car race
The first saloon car race followed. As regular readers may recall, the grid is formed based on first entry received gets pole, and so on. That means there is generally a lot of close action in the early laps.
The low temperatures and damp track didn’t help some stay on the track. There was a suggestion from Andrew that there might have been a nudge on the Hyundai …
Having returned to his earlier spot, Andrew captured the flaming Mazda RX8.
Meanwhile I caught this moment for the RX8 – he saved it and carried on ! Sean Reynolds took the saloon car win in his #777 Fiesta ST240.
Mallory Park Gerrard’s
With the delays in the morning, the first sports car race was deferred until after the lunch break, so it was back to the car for a warm up and dry out.
We moved to the exit of Gerrard’s for the sports race with the intention of then driving round to the Hairpin. Andy Boyce pulled out a good lead in his #22 Radical SR1 but the race was called early as the fog returned.
Mallory Park Hairpin
As can be seen the conditions were not improving. We moved round to the hairpin, but after a short hiatus, the word went put that the meeting was abandoned on safety grounds – for competitors and marshals alike. When it is not possible to see the next marshals post along, it’s definitely the right decision.
It’s the first time that the racing has been curtailed early in our time attending. We hope that next year runs in glorious sunshine for the 50th Plum Pudding races.
