The Historic Sports Car Club has been voted as the ‘Club of the Year’ at the first International Historic Motoring Awards held at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in central London last week (16 November, 2011).

The awards’ evening drew a star-studded audience from across the historic motor sport and motoring industry, both from the UK and from overseas, and was hosted by former Grand Prix racer and TV commentator Martin Brundle.

2011 has been a superbly successful season for the HSCC and, alongside a full programme of racing for its members across 10 well-established categories, the HSCC inaugurated both the E-type Challenge series of races to mark 50 years of the Jaguar E-type and the Martini Trophy for 2-litre sports-racing cars during 2011. The club continued to develop the highly successful Historic Formula 2 Trophy and was the appointed race organising club for the Silverstone Classic, the Donington Historic Festival, the Walter Hayes Trophy and Tour Britannia.

The judging panel included such distinguished names as five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell, Jay Leno (US TV host and car collector), Nick Mason (historic racer and member of Pink Floyd), Lady Susie Moss (wife of Sir Stirling), Patrick Peter (Le Mans Classic organiser), Ian Callum (director of design Jaguar Cars) and Robert Coucher (International editor of Octane).“To be recognised by such a group of international judges makes this very special,” said the club’s executive director Grahame White as he collected the award. “It is a great honour and privilege and a real credit to everyone involved in running the HSCC’s racing programme,” continued White. “It’s great for the members, too, in the year when our membership topped 1000 for the first time.”

During the evening, the HSCC’s Patron-in-Chief Sir Stirling Moss OBE was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his outstanding racing career.