Short oval racing is perhaps the United Kingdom’s most unruly sport – Mashable

It’s a rainy and miserable midsummer Sunday in Thurrock, Essex, in the southeast of England. A middle-aged man, drenched to the bone, sits in the mud. 

The raincoat he has drawn up over his head does nothing to keep him dry, nor does the large umbrella which sags beneath the volume of rain bearing down on it. He yells some indecipherable orders to his son, Jack, who sits inside the car, twisting the steering wheel to the left and right. Jack, currently in second place in the 2014 PRI Junior Banger championship, is only slightly more sheltered from the rain. His dad aggressively works away at tightening the bolts on the front wheel of the battered car, reclaimed, reinforced and ready for today’s race.

Intense sounds swirl around the muddy pit area, like revving engines and sledgehammers violently hitting warped metal panels. Some of these cars don’t even resemble a traditional car form anymore; they’re now more like giant screwed up balls of luridly painted tinfoil tossed in the sludge with the occasional jutting tire. The piercing screech of an axle grinder merges with the rabble from the gangs of mechanics frantically making last-minute repairs before the start of the next heat. In a nearby alcove between flatbeds, a mechanic with no safety goggles inhales a smoking arc of molten sparks. He doesn’t care: He has a smile on his face. 

A junior class ministox race is just starting on track; you can tell from gentle bee-like hum of old-school Mini Coopers. There’s an exodus from the pit area. Friends, family and fans slipping in the grey-brown gloop as they enthusiastically make their way track-side to cheer on their sons and daughters, their fathers, their brothers and sisters. 

It was sunny 15 minutes ago and will probably be sunny again in a few minutes. The great British summer. Half-hourly fluctuations between rain, sun, rain, sun, hail. But this never puts off a Brit from driving or spectating. We Brits are defiant like that. Stiff upper lip and all.