Alex Brundle’s Goodwood Revival: Mini battles, a Lola T70 podium and a Cobra setback

Ah, the Goodwood Revival. It was a weekend of tribulation. First up, I was in a Mini with Bill Sollis in the St Mary’s Trophy. There’s a reason one Mini owner books another for the ‘pro race’; I’m old enough to know he wants me to keep it safe on Friday so he can live out Revival dreams on Sunday. As a Mini owner, I’m picked out of the list as ‘person least likely to break it’!

It did hiccup, but only in qualifying. Mini racing legend Bill runs a great big detent spring, which pushes the gearbox into the ‘long gates’ (clearly a man who has stood trackside one too many times watching his invited driver go first-second-first and buzz the life out of that poor little A-series engine). I request a strong block on the reverse gate, which is otherwise beautifully positioned to be a total pain and mess up your dynamic second-to-third shift in a ’65 Cooper. Worlds collided: his favourite spring guiding the stick perfectly past my favourite block, locking me out of the box in the reverse gate. Nick Swift’s practised hands reached into the cockpit and battered the stick back to neutral, and off we went but, with few laps remaining, I qualified 21st. Rubbish.

But the race was cool. I got into a battle with two Mk2 Jags driven by David Brabham and Andy Priaulx, and beat them to the heights of 16th. In a Mini, you have to slowly prise the door open; a three-stage process. You can start by bothering them at the second apex of Madgwick, pushing the bigger car a little wide; they’ll blast back ahead, but not as far, to ‘No Name’. For phase two, go around the outside of the first part of St Mary’s and be ahead at the second apex, then block for your life into Lavant, send it through the apex and get a little gap. You’ll lose out on the Lavant Straight, but that sets you up for the finishing move: around the outside at Woodcote on the brakes, and pull out a gap through the chicane. Job done!

I drove four laps in qualifying for the RAC TT Celebration in our Cobra. Some of those 289 engine blocks get hotter and hotter. Every now and then, you get a block that just wraps its needle around 100˚C. Ace preparation man and driver Gary Pearson, with whom I was sharing it, jumped in and said, ‘We can race it until it melts, but I propose we don’t.’ So… we didn’t. That was such a shame.

I was happy to rack up a Goodwood podium in the Whitsun Trophy in the Lola T70. The new owner had travelled across the Atlantic to watch it race, and feedback from testing hadn’t been glowing, with an engine expiry uncomfortably close to the event. So it was a hurried engine change with whatever suited the homologation and was available in the UK.

I was up to second, and all I had to do was get it home. It started losing its clutch, so I had to be careful on those big-load gear shifts and manage it. With little pressure from behind, the race became a mechanical exam on how to get the car to the finish, but I did, and there was a cigar waiting, above. I can’t wait to iron out the creases and push harder in it next year.