"I raced one"

Chris Craft
This accomplished sports car ace was once a tin-top front-runner in BSCC – and ETCC – Escorts

“I have a lot of affection for the Mk1. I’d enjoyed success with the Anglias beforehand. The Escort was a step beyond, though, a super little car. I’d raced for Superspeed in 1966 before going to Italy to race in Formula 3. When my single-seater adventure was over I drove for Ralph Broad at Broadspeed. He was highly excitable and a very good engineer, and for 1968 I competed in the 1300cc class of the BSCC with John Fitzpatrick as my team-mate. There was never much in it between us; we were rarely more than a few car lengths apart.

“The highlight of that year for me, though, was doing the European Touring Car Championship race at the Nürburgring. It was on the old Nordschleife with me sharing my car with Roger Clark and ‘Fitz’ paired with Trevor Taylor. That was a six-hour race and a pretty strong entry [93 starters] with Alan Mann running two Twin Cams. Well, they both retired but we kept going to take the class win [and come home ninth on the road] with my team-mates one place behind. At the time I never used to think about what races meant to me, as you always thought ahead to the next one, but that was a satisfying result.

“I carried on with Broadspeed in 1969 and in 1970 I had a Twin Cam with the five-speed ZF ’box. I shared it with Jackie Stewart in the Tourist Trophy but had transmission problems. By this time I was trying to make it in sports cars but I loved saloons so mixing it up worked well.”