Lindsay Triumphant At VSCC Silverstone

Ludovic Lindsay, son of the late Hon. Patrick, has realised his greatest wish by winning the memorial trophy race dedicated to his father’s memory in his beloved ERA R5B ‘Remus’. Runner-up six times, he finally broke his jinx at the VSCC’s Silverstone meeting on March 25.

“Last year was galling,” said Lindsay. “I reckoned we finally had it won when the carburettor float chamber broke off. Never in ERA’s history had I heard of that happening. I was gutted, and thought perhaps it was never to be. My father would have laughed and tied again.” This year it all came right, and fittingly it was Remus’s 100th victory.

Lindsay had the measure of his rivals, led first by Michael Steele, making his debut in R4D. Steele nosed ahead at the start, but Lindsay had the upper hand by Copse and gave a virtuoso wheel-twirling display to the flag. “As I crossed the finish line I looked up and said, ‘Papa, Thank You!’ I think he would have approved.”

John Ure was the opponent Lindsay feared most, and although he blasted ERA R9B through from the back of the grid, Ludovic remained beyond reach. Steele kept third from Paul Jaye, running David Baldock’s Alta with twin rear wheels, who had Goff Tidball (in Donald Day’s ERA R14B) and Martin Dean’s Bugatti T51 scrapping mightily over his shoulder. Stanley Mann’s Bentley wrested the feature GP Itala Trophy, the marque’s first since 1979. MP