Historic racing news
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More F1 for Goodwood
1970s racers to star in demo event | by Paul Lawrence
More than 25 rarely seen early 1970s Grand Prix cars will feature in a demonstration from Formula 1’s ‘high airbox’ era during the 73rd Goodwood Members’ Meeting on March 21/22.
Two ex-Niki Lauda Ferraris and a pair of Lotus 72s will be joined by cars from March, McLaren, Tyrrell, Shadow, Amon, Trojan and Token. The Ferrari 312T and 312B3 will head a demonstration session each day along with JPS-liveried Lotus 72s driven in period by Emerson Fittipaldi and Ronnie Peterson.
The experimental March 721X raced by Henri Pescarolo in 1972 will be on hand along with the 1973 Shadow DN1 from Graham Hill’s team. Meanwhile, a rare appearance will be made by the Token RJ02 in which Tom Pryce made his F1 debut.
The race line-up for the Members’ meeting will include the Derek Bell Cup for 1-litre Formula 3, while Graham Hill will be celebrated with an hour-long, two-driver race for 1960-66 GT cars on the Saturday evening. Group 1 saloons will also appear after a successful revival event in 2014.
John Aldington, the man credited with introducing Porsche into the UK, will be remembered with the John Aldington Trophy race exclusively for pre-1967 Porsche 911s.
The Hawthorn Trophy will be for 1950s front-engined F1, F2 and Formule Libre cars, while 1960 British Formula Junior champion Trevor Taylor will be honoured with a race for rear-engined, drum-braked Juniors.
Early Can-Am prototypes and pre-1935 grand prix cars will race for the Bruce McLaren and Earl Howe Trophies and a race for British 1960s production sports cars will be named in honour of Les Leston.
Finally, Goodwood has announced that the theme for the 2015 Festival of Speed (June 25-28) will be ‘Flat-out and Fearless: Racing on the Edge’. The event will celebrate epic moments such as the Gilles Villeneuve/René Arnoux battle at Dijon-Prenois in 1979 and Colin McRae at the Bunnings jumps on Rally Australia in 1997.
BRM V16 cash appeal
The National Motor Museum Trust is working to raise another £50,000 in order to preserve the museum’s 1950 BRM V16 Type 15 and keep it running in demonstrations.
To date, the BRM Preservation Appeal has raised more than £34,000, but more is needed to fund vital restoration work on this celebrated Grand Prix car.
As the official 2014 Goodwood Revival Beneficiary Charity, the Trust has made a good start in securing the funding for much-needed work to the 1950 racer.
Chassis 1 was raced by Reg Parnell and Juan Manuel Fangio in period and restoration is required to keep it running, including a rebuild of the supercharged 1.5-litre V16 engine. The suspension and brakes also need to be refurbished.
“Thanks to the donations we have received so far, work can begin on the first stage of the BRM’s renovation,” said Douglas Hill from the NMM. “The engine can be removed and tested on a dyno to see how much power it is still producing, before being disassembled and inspected.
“We still don’t know what will be uncovered during the engine strip-down so are uncertain how much time and money will ultimately be required.”
Replica BMW’s flying start
Model enthusiast Chris Randall recently completed work on a replica of a 1979 BMW CSL GTO and looked on as Mike Wilds and Steve Guglielmi took it to an end-of-season Masters victory at Oulton Park.
Randall wanted to build a machine like the four Group 5 CSLs built in period and the project replicates the cars raced in the US IMSA series.
“We started with a period car that had some race history and it runs a 3.5-litre normally aspirated engine,” said Randall of the three-year build project, which is finished in familiar Jägermeister colours.
Historic titles settled
Steve Hartley and Manfredo Rossi de Montelera have been confirmed as 2014 FIA Masters Historic F1 champions. Lancastrian Hartley won the post-78 title in his Arrows A4, while Italian de Montelera (Brabham BT42, above) won the pre-78 crown.
Meanwhile, Morgan SLR racers Keith Ahlers and Billy Bellinger claimed the Masters Gentleman Drivers title. Leo Voyazides and Simon Hadfield won the FIA Masters Sports Car Championship in Voyazides’ Lola T70 Mk3B and the London-based Greek racer added the Masters Pre-66 Touring Car title with his Ford Falcon.
Burns & Chevron honoured
The life of Richard Burns and the 50th anniversary of the Chevron marque will be celebrated during the 2015 edition of Race Retro at Stoneleigh from February 20-22.
Ten years on from Burns’s death, the show will honour the memory of Britain’s second world rally champion with a display of his cars ranging from an early Talbot Sunbeam through to Peugeots and Subarus (below) from the heyday of his WRC career.
The late Derek Bennett formed Chevron Racing in 1965 and his company built beautiful cars for most categories in the late 1960s and 1970s. Many examples of his single-seater and sports car designs will be on show.
In brief
* Plans for a revival of the Chateau Impney hillclimbs of the 1950s and 1960s are gathering momentum, with a July 11/12 fixture provisionally arranged. A new course, double the length of the 550-yard original, has been given MSA approval. It is believed that the revival event will focus on older cars. The first hillclimb on the hotel drive was held in 1957.
* The Historic Sports Car Club has launched a new scheme to encourage novice competitors in three of its most accessible race championships: Historic Formula Ford, Historic Road Sports and ’70s Road Sports. The scheme will reward the best novice in each championship with an end-of-season trophy as well as an entry voucher for the 2016 season. The Road Sports trophies will be named in honour of Gerry Marshall and Win Percy.
* The route for the 2015 edition of Tour Britannia is now being finalised and will take competitors across the Irish Sea for five closed-road special stages in the Wicklow Hills. The May 13-15 event will start and finish in North Wales and include races at Anglesey and Mondello Park.
* We regret to record the passing of John Homewood, a successful Hillman Imp racer during the 1970s. He was 67 and had been suffering from cancer.
Obituary – Jock Russell
Jock Russell, best known for racing a Lotus 70 in Formula 5000 in the early 1970s, has died. Edinburgh-based Russell sometimes bought out-of-date Grand Prix cars and drove an ex-Stirling Moss Lotus 18 and the ex-Jim Clark Lotus 43 in Libre events. In his early years he raced against Clark on the tracks of Scotland and northern England.