A day at the races – Torture testing the Fears Redcliff 39.5
It seems a bit strange to be writing this as the summer comes to a close, but it’s a good reminder that there are a lot of ways to spend the summer. You could travel to foreign shores, go camping, go hiking, or spend the time mowing the lawn and bemoaning a very rare dry British summer and the inevitable hosepipe ban. I choose to spend summer weekends watching and photographing motor racing. I’m lucky enough to have three circuits within easy reach. I can go to New Jersey Motorsports Park for motorcycles, the 1.5 miles of insanity that is Lime Rock Park, and the magnificent Watkins Glen. This is the story of the Fears Redcliff 39.5 at “The Glen”. A three-day odyssey to watch IMSA in upstate New York.
Motor racing photography needs a few things: a camera, loooong lenses, a monopod, memory cards, rain gear (just in case), and sunscreen. Lots of sunscreen, as there is no point in being burned to a cherry red on day one. Water-resistant sunscreens are the enemy of watches. Never wear a leather strap on a day when you’ll be wearing sunscreen. Trust me on this. A watch with a bracelet that will be comfortable at temperatures ranging from 20°C to 35°C is essential; good legibility is a plus too. Step forward the Fears Redcliff. I bought this watch a couple of months before the Sahlen’s six hours of The Glen, and it was time to see if it was the go-anywhere sports watch that the inimitable Mr. Bowman-Scargill told me it was.
The weekend starts with a 250-mile drive, and the Redcliff was quite happy on my wrist as I drove. It ticked away quite happily, totally unaware of what was about to happen to it. Once at The Glen, it was time to put the cameras together and apply the first layer of sunscreen. (if you’re taking a shot every time I say sunscreen, this could turn out to be a bad day for you.) Then it was time for some photography.
The only thing a watch needs to do when taking photographs of cars moving at 175 + mph is be unobtrusive. Once you take your eye from the viewfinder, it needs to be instantly readable so that you can figure out if it’s time to move to a new vantage point for different images or should you stay as the session is ending. The Redcliff fulfills this brief perfectly.
The Fears Redcliff is a 39.5mm stainless steel sports watch. I have the cherry red version, which really pops in bright sunlight. The simple hands (Type XIIa according to the Oakeshott Typology but with the distinctive Fears tip) and indices mean the watch is legible. There’s a lot of negative space on the dial, which most brands would fill with unnecessary elements. Fears has good taste not to and lets the dial shine. There is a colour-matched date at 3 o’clock, and the Fears wordmark at 12 o’clock, and that’s it. A lot of brands would have been unable to resist peppering the dial with text below the central pinion to distract from that space. The Fears Redcliff leaves it blank so you can better appreciate the dial. That was a good choice, as, particularly in Cherry Red, the dial shines. The sunray effect means that it’s a constantly changing display of colour. The only downside is that the colour-matched date wheel only rarely actually matches the dial colour. You win some, you lose some in this case.
The Redcliff is powered by a La Joux-Perret G100. This is derived from the Miyota 9015, and they share the same architecture. The only potential drawback of this movement is that it has a unidirectional rotor. This means that you might experience the rotor spinning on occasion. I found that I really had to provoke the watch by giving it a quick shake to make it do this. It’s also really, really hard to tell that the rotor on your watch is wobbling when a racing Corvette or Aston Martin Valkyrie goes past, and the exhaust gives your insides a visceral shake in a way no rotor is ever going to be able to. The G100 also has 68 hours of power reserve, so if you decide not to torture your watch for a weekend, it will still be running on Sunday evening even if you are not. The Redcliff has a custom blue Fears rotor which, in my example, is visible through the exhibition case back. Custom rotors are almost obligatory these days, but the Fears rotor manages to be very stylish and classy. I didn’t know that the Redcliff range can be specified with either an exhibition or closed case back. I’m glad mine has the exhibition case back though. Like the dial, the rotor has just the right punch of colour to make it stand out, especially when it’s spinning.
After three days with lots of time spent driving, sitting in the shade of a tree waiting, and standing in the sun taking pictures, did the Fears deal with the final indignity of a motor racing day? I’m glad that it has a water resistance of 150 meters. I’ll never need it, though. I just need it to survive being soaked in water and washing up to remove the sunscreen.
Did the Redcliff survive a day or three at the races? Of course it did. It was comfortable to wear and easy to read and very stylish. It did what it was designed to do and will do so for many years to come. You don’t need a G-Shock for weekends like this. It may not be the most distinctive Fears watch, but it is neat, modern, and perfectly sized. The cushion case of the Brunswick is the brand’s secret sauce when it comes to cases.
The Redcliff fits neatly in the GADA spectrum between the Christopher Ward C63 Sealander and the Omega Aqua Terra. It retains its Fears’ identity and does everything a normal owner needs it to do. Sadly, the Cherry Red dial is no longer made, but I’m sure that there are still some in the dealer network. Rather like Radio 4, by the time I realise a trend is real, that trend is over. I now have two watches with bright red dials, just as the whole world moved to pastel… But when the dial is as good as the “Cherry Red” I’m happy to be a beacon of brightness in a pastel world. As the summer comes to a close, I’m wondering how I can test the Redcliff next. I know – how about a night at the opera?
