News in brief, June 2005

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MG enthusiast David Saunders has added the ex-works MGC GT to his collection and has nearly completed the restoration of an ex-Rauno Aaltonen MG Midget, discovered in America. Aaltonen raced the Midget at Bridgehampton in 1965 but it has yet to race in the UK. Saunders hopes to give the car its ‘debut’ this summer.

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John Clark will campaign a lightweight Jaguar E-type in long-distance races this season, sharing the ex-lan Montgomery car with his son Chris. Clark, who raced a BMW M3 in the 1991 BTCC, has the E-type tended by Sid Hoole Racing.

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Dean Butler hopes to race his 1973 IROC Chevrolet Camaro in Europe, having given it a shakedown run at Silverstone recently. The car was used for four seasons of IROC racing and driven by Richard Petty, Graham Hill, AJ Foyt and Emerson Fittipaldi in that time.

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Danny Wright will race in Grand Prix Masters this season in Philip Walker’s Brabham BT23B. The 1967 car runs a 2.7-litre Climax engine and was built for the Tasman formula. It has not been raced in recent seasons.

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Thanks to the generosity of Peter Denty, Jeremy Bouckley will race a Formula Junior Cooper this season, having last driven such a car in 1964, when he raced his own Cooper.

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Larry Kinch plans to race his ex-Peter Arundell Lotus 20/22 Formula Junior car this season after testing it at Silverstone recently. Although he has owned the car for three years, the Scotsman had never driven it until this spring. He also plans to race an ex-Jim Clark Lotus 32 this season.

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The BRM V16 that normally resides in the National Motor Museum could be in action at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June. The possibility of running the notoriously under-developed car for the first time in around 10 years has recently been under evaluation.

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The Dunlop VSCC awards for the 2004 season were presented at the club’s Spring Start meeting at Silverstone in April. The major awards went to Duncan Ricketts (pre-war cars), Graham Burrows (post-war) and the evergreen Ted Williams (1950s sportscars).

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An error crept into a caption in our Mille Miglia supplement last month. It was photographer Bernard Cahier, not Autocar journalist Peter Gamier, looking over Jenks’s shoulder on page 22. Apologies for the confusion.