The Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting began with a fitting 'golden' celebration from Lola Cars.

The Huntingdon based company is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary during 2008 and to mark the occasion, Lola kicked off the weekend's Gold Cup festivities with a parade of some of its most iconic cars from the past half-century.

The parade was prefaced by demonstration laps by local driver Mike Newton in his RML run MG Lola LM 675 car which raced at Le Mans in the early 2000s.

Next on track was a stream of cars from the past five decades; led by a 1959 Lola Mkl sports car the procession included a T70 Spyder, T100 Formula 2, T200 Formula Ford and T670 Formula 3 car. Led by Frank Lyons a cluster of Formula 5000 cars ranging from T300 to T400 gave photographers some excellent pictures with their ‘mock racing’ around the sweeping Cheshire circuit. Bringing up the rear Steve Maxted in his T460 F Atlantic and multiple FF Championship winner Neil Fowler, in Lola’s latest Sports 2000/Track Day car seemingly had no problem keeping up with the heavy metal ahead of them.

Over the past fifty years Lola has experienced success in a wide range of motorsport formulae including sports cars, Formula 2, Formula 3, Le Mans and Champ Car. It also provided vehicles for the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport.

More than a dozen Lolas were in action during the Bank Holiday weekend in Formula Junior, Historic Formula 2 and Historic Formula Ford categories, as well as the Derek Bell Trophy.

Whilst the Surtees TS20 of Jeremy Smith triumphed in two dramatic races to win the Derek Bell Trophy first Lola Home was Neil Glover's Lola T330. Glover just beat a charging Tony Trimmer to secure third position. And in recognition of his exceptional drive Neil was awarded the ‘LOLA ANNIVERSARY TROPHY’ by Lola Heritage Coordinator, Glyn Jones.

"What a great race!" said Glover. "I had a really tough start, dropping down to fifth or sixth place but I managed to make up a few places to finish third. I've had a great day - it is a great honour to receive the Lola trophy and the crowd have been wonderful. I hope they enjoyed the race as much as I did."



The Lola paddock. (Picture courtesy of Charlie Wooding)



The RML MG Lola with Mike Newton at the wheel. (Picture courtesy of Lawrence and James Jackson)



The Lola Mk1. (Picture courtesy of Charlie Wooding)



The F5000 cars bought back... (Picture courtesy of Lawrence and James Jackson)



...great memories of the 1970s. (Picture courtesy of Lawrence and James Jackson)



Barrie Williams in the T92. (Picture courtesy of Charlie Wooding)



The new T70 Mkll Continuation car made its debut. (Picture courtesy of Charlie Wooding)



The Trackday B08/90. (Picture courtesy of Charlie Wooding)