FRESSINGFIELD OILY RAG

CLUB

NEWSLETTERJuly 2020

FORC - For Motor Sport Enthusiasts

FORC ARE BACK ON TRACK!News from the Snetterton Track Evening on 30th June

Lined up in Pit Lane ready for the off - Picture: Ken Carrington

Javelin confirmed our reservation for the 300 circuit back in February. Good job –four weeks later and who knows? We had barely agreed the dates before the gateswere locked and stayed that way until late May!

Typical selection at Murrays, above – Mark Bright in the replica works Rover 3500 Saloon Carracer, followed by Gerry Bowen in the beautiful ex-Neil Trundle Lotus 11

and Mervyn Green's Ford Focus

It all turned out very well with an excellent eclectic turnout of seventy-twocar/drivers plus fourteen additional drivers and more than a dozen passengers. Somewere using the event as a necessary test session for an imminent race after theenforced lock-down!

A rarity these days and a wolf in sheep's clothing? Welcome new FORC member Theo Kyriacouattacks the Esses in his FIAT 131

There were only two non-starters due to prior car problems – hopefully they will soon be fixed.

Andy Kitson's film of the Trackday is now open to view on the FORC website. Go towww.forc.org.uk and on the homepage click on 'Pics & Videos'

The FORC Peter Andrews Memorial Sprint Snetterton 100 circuit

Sunday 30th August

FORC are back at Snetterton on August Bank Holiday Sunday 30th August. This time we arerunning the seventh edition of our club sprint, organised for us by our very good friends atJavelin Trackdays, on the ‘100’ Circuit.

Of course you will have just read all the details on the preceding flyer. If you would like to seewhat happens there are videos from previous events on www.forc.org.uk. Click on Pics and Videosfrom the homepage.

As we go to press we have a full entry for this event so the Reserve List is now open! Please usethe contact facility on the FORC homepage to register your interest. Just eight weeks to go sodon’t miss out.

We have taken on board your feedback from previous years. As well as the FORC FTD Trophyfor overall fastest time of the day there will be a class structure which will widen the scope foryou to come away with a trophy regardless of what car you run!

Stuart Mackay (Westfield Cosworth) and Paul Scott (Caterham) await their turns at the Sprint.

The View from the Editorial Desk

It was good to see everyone at our Snetterton Track Evening. You all have to becongratulated on adapting to the new signing on arrangements. There were probablyless hitches than under the old system. It might have seemed less fun than previouslywhen everyone piled into the office but there was certainly less pressure on theteam.

It was quite relaxing to be able to surf the queue and catch up with those we hadn’tseen for months. It was good to meet and greet new members too; apologies if wedidn’t catch up with you all during the evening. I thought the event went well andjudging from feedback at the time, and since, so did you: it helps a great deal for usto know.

Now, as you will have hopefully just read, we look forward to our seventh PeterAndrews Sprint on the Snetterton 100 circuit. This must be the first time in nearlytwenty years that I have previewed an event that is already fully booked!Nevertheless we still have eight weeks to go so if you register as a reserve there isalways the possibility you will get a run.

I know I’m an old fart, but despite my positive comments about the new signingon process at the Track Evening, Despite the reason for the change, the newsigning on process for Track Events was overdue. I’ve a strong aversion to thefashionable term ‘new normal.’ Hopefully we can steadily move forward to theFORC (old) normal soon!

Best wishes for safe Oily Ragging Steve Wyatt

The Daily Mirror Trophy 14th March 1964 – a wet day recalled by Steve Wyatt

Last month David Harbey introduced his report on the Snetterton Stages Rally bytaking us back to his first ever visit to Snetterton for the Daily Mirror Trophy, a non-championship Formula 1 race. This was one of a number of Formula 1 events which,in those days, formed an unofficial ‘series’ which ran before the F1 WorldChampionship traditionally got under way at Monaco in May.

The Snetterton race, sometimes sponsored by Lombank, or in this case by the DailyMirror, was usually the first. Followed by The Glover Trophy at Goodwood, usuallyon Easter Monday. The Aintree 200 and Silverstone Daily Express InternationalTrophy usually followed in April. From 1965 the Snetterton race gave way to theBrands Hatch Race of Champions in March.

These were serious races attracting entries from most of the works teams. In the caseof Snetterton the race distance was fifty laps of the then 2.71 miles circuit – over135 miles. Organisers were the Snetterton Motor Racing Club which you could joinfor an annual subscription of £2 which entitled you to patronise their, licensed,Paddock Bar! Compare the circuit map, copied from the race programme, the longNorwich Straight culminating in The Hairpin, with the modern incarnation (Seehttps://www.snetterton.co.uk/circuit-information.aspx#circuitMap )

The nineteen starters included works Lotus 25’s for Jim Clark and Peter Arundell, aBRM P261 for Graham Hill, a works Cooper Climax V8 for Bruce McLaren, plusthe Rob Walker 1963 machine for Jo Bonnier. Jack Brabham’s BT7 was joined bythe BT3, the first Brabham F1 machine, now BRM V8 powered and owned by IanRaby. The British Racing Partnership entered a BRP-BRM for Innes Ireland. Amongsecond string entries were a pair of ex-works BRM’s entered by Scuderia CentroSud, and painted red, for 1961 World Champion Phil Hill and Giancarlo Baghetti.The two works Ferrari entries were withdrawn before the event; imagine works F1Ferraris racing round Snetterton!

Practice – it would now be called qualifying – was held in fine dry conditions. Onpole was Jim Clark with Graham Hill and Arundell sharing the front row. McLarenand Brabham made up the second row.

The first Formula 1 Brabham, the 1962 BT3 with BRM V8 power driven by Ian Raby covered 22 laps before crashing

You can get some idea of the rain, mist, size of the crowd from this picture of ‘Gentleman JackSears’ early in the race ‘sailing’ through the very wet esses.

Gawaine Bailey finished third in his privately entered Galaxie behind Jim Clark in one of theworks Lotus Cortinas. In this picture he is leading eventual winner Brabham with,the Andre

Baldet Lotus Cortina the filling in the sandwich!

Race day dawned wet with persistent rain, sleet, and mist which failed to deter alarge crowd who arrived to see racing get under way with a British Saloon CarChampionship round. The field included future FORC guests Jack Sears in the 7litre Willment Ford Galaxie and Paddy Hopkirk and John Fitzpatrick in works MiniCooper’s. There were works Lotus Cortinas’ for Jim Clark and Peter Arundell plustwo more Galaxies for Jack Brabham and Sir Gawaine Bailey Unfortunately Jacktangled with a Mini he was lapping letting Jack Brabham take victory in anotherGalaxie.

Paddy Hopkirk and John Fitzpatrick diced like this throughout.

Conditions were so atrocious that by the time the Formula 1 cars were due out that itwas decided to shorten the race to 35 laps. Large increasingly deep puddles coveredthe circuit with many cars spinning off or ingesting water into the engines. In theend Innes Ireland got into the lead of this race of attrition followed home by BruceMcLaren and Phil Hill. It is easy to imagine that everyone was glad when thechequered flag came out!

Graham Hill sported a circular visor which it was claimed would spin the rain off. It is not recorded whether this contributed to his hefty accident between the hairpin and the esses.

Jim Clark was one of those whose engine succumbed to drowned ignition.

The days racing concluded with a BARC Formula 3 Championship race, cut from20 to 10 laps in view of the continuing rain and failing light. Jackie Stewart won inthe latest Ken Tyrrell Cooper-BMC Type 72, from John Fenning’s Lotus 22, andRodney Bloor’s Brabham BT9. Jackie went on to win seven of the tenchampionship rounds!

For many years Snetterton had a reputation for bad weather but looking through myown picture collection yes, there were some pretty awful days; perhaps it was theonset of global warming but there were some pretty good ones too.

Thanks to Mike Dixon for allowing us to publish this selection of his picturesfrom the day. Well done Mike!

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David Witham Remembers:Formula Ford in the late 70’s

When Steve asked me to write about my experience racing in Formula Ford in the 70’s I nearly fell into the trap of telling the usual “then I raced here and then I raced there and then we ran out of money”. That is sort of true but dull.

So I decided you would all be bored with that so I am only giving you a snapshot of what I can remember and the result of digging through a lot of rubbish in the loft and other hideaways.

I will have to dig deeper to try and collate all this sometime.

1975

In early 1975 I asked my bank manager for a loan to buy a racing car. Much to mysurprise he said yes and I bought a 1971 Alexis Mk18B Formula Ford with a Don Parker trailer for £750. Our tow car was to be our trusty Hillman Imp. Naturally itneeded a rebuild, the Alexis, not the Imp, but it was all ready by August 1975 to test at Goodwood. We shared the day with David Purley with his Lec Chevron F5000 car. There were only the two of us so we took turns to go out. I couldn’t imagine that now. They were so understanding and considerate. I ran the car with the old Firestone Torinos that used to be the road tyres that FF used.

This was our pitch at Snetterton that cold November day.

With the car all up to date with new Dunlop race tyres, external cooling pipes (water used to run through the chassis tubes before 1975) and two hand held dry powder fire extinguishers, we (Eleri and I) were ready for our first race at Snetterton Formula Ford Festival in November 1975. In at the deep end to say the least. How was everyone so fast!? How were there so many cars?

We were right by the Jim Russell Racing Driver School building. Look at thelovely paddock surface and that rather vulnerable oil tank at the back of the car.Having driven up from Southampton we stayed the night in our frame tent. Wewere mad, cold but keen.

This was taken on the grid with Eleri and my brother-in-law for moral support.

No dream result but I finished, not last and got £5 prize money for my labours.

1976

1976 saw the start of the Dunlop Star of Tomorrow FF championship for Novice drivers.

At Oulton Park in September, on the very short circuit, again we were camping to savemoney and a long way from Southampton. Two heats and a final with 37 entries, thisevent was supporting the Gold Cup which was for F5000 cars.

Here is the result sheet for the DSoT final at Oulton Park that day. As you can see ithas suffered the ravages of time but it is fun to read it today. But some of it is not.Finishing 12th was Bob Toleman who sadly passed away after crashing at Snetterton, Ithink, the following weekend. I didn’t go to Snett because I had damaged the bodyworkon my car at Oulton and I am glad I didn’t.

When you look at the names in the first 4 places you can see why they were specialtimes.

At the end of 1977, I bought Mike ‘Fulmar’ Taylor’s Image FF2B (he had finished 11 th at the Oulton Race in 1976) as a rolling chassis for I seem to remember about £1200. He was buying a new Royale RP24. I ran it with the Holbay engine and Hewland Mk8 from the Alexis until I could afford a better engine. A GGS with Oselli dry sump pump. This engine was good for 105 BHP on the rolling dyno run by Tom Airey at New Cheriton Garage out towards Petersfield. Not bad with points ignition. Airey Tuning is still going today.

By now the old Imp had gone and had been replaced by a Singer Chamois Sport.998cc Hartwell block and good for 7000 rpm in top gear. I will not tell you how fast itcould tow the Image but it was quick.

1978

Eleri cleaning the tyres on the grid, with no green flag laps in those days we had to switch offand start with cold tyres. No wonder there were so many first lap prangs!

The USAC Indy cars were at the Silverstone GP circuit (the old circuit with just achicane at Woodcote.) and we raced on the Saturday when it was too wet for thebig boys. My best man, Mick Clark was working for Penske down in Poole. Hetold me afterwards that Rick Mears, who was driving for Penske at the time, stoodon the pit wall at the start of our race and when a swarm of FF cars blasted downto Copse in a ball of spray apparently he said “Gee, those guys have got balls!”We knew no different and actually it wasn’t that wet, just a bit damp. All this wason 30th September. Eleri was expecting our first child (Ceri) who was born on 21st

October and was my pit crew with help from some university friends. We all cameback to watch the USAC boys the following day but left Eleri at home. Looking atthe picture it must have been taken earlier in the year since Eleri is not showingany sign of the bump and it is not wet.

1979

In 1979 I retreated to racing only at Castle Combe in the BRSCC SW championship.Two nasty prangs that I remember. Backwards into the concrete marshals’ post on theexit of Old Paddock and T-boning some South American hot shoe who had spun under

braking for Quarry on first lap. The first was a trip to Frenchay Hospital in Bristol with“suspected broken neck”. The first was entirely my fault because I had exited Quarryperfectly and Old Paddock was one of those “lift and you're a chicken” corners. Inhindsight that is only true if you haven’t left the previous corner quite so fast. I hadcracked my crash helmet and as I switched off the master switch and tried to get out ofthe car I found my legs were not working too well and everything looked as though Iwas wearing red tinted sun glasses. The marshals laid me down and the doctor said“can you feel this?” No, “can you feel this?” No. This was in practice and the red flagwas thrown, the ambulance went out and I didn’t come around. Eleri was very worriedand as I was lying in the medical centre, the ground floor of the control tower, Elericame in looking anxious. My first question? “How bad is the car? Can we fix it for thisafternoon?” The doctor nearly exploded. Now racers understand this but normalpeople don’t.They thought I had a broken neck but I hadn’t fortunately but having my neck in abrace, Eleri had to tow the car home to Southampton with me in the passenger seat.What a star.

1980

Finally realised family needed to take priority and parked the car up. Problem is whenyou have experienced the buzz you need another fix. Fast forward to 2001 and startracing in 2002 in Sports 2000 with a 1982 Lola T592S. Zandvoort in the first year wasan experience. But all of that is another story.

David Whitham FORC

FORC MARKET PLACE

You may not realise it, but FORC has over 500 members. We all have a keen interestin cars, bikes and motorsport and we are mostly “local to Norfolk and Suffolk, and Essex”. So why not make more use of the clubs “For Sale and Wanted” section on the club web site.

Currently, we have cars, books and vintage petrol pumps for sale, while the wanted section is still looking for complete cars, car parts and race car bits.

Cars for sale now: 1975 Triumph TR6 Always garaged and only used in the dry 1998 Jaguar XK8 Coachwork rust free and beautiful1964 Rover 95 A very historic and immaculate car1937 Austin ‘7’Ruby Saloon For rebuild/restoration1932 Austin ‘7’ Chummy Tourer – Immaculate1996/98 Stevens Cipher Coupe. Pre-production prototype

PlusMotor Sport Magazine Volumes 1954 to-’96 in black bindingH J Godwin Hand Cranked Fuel PumpBowser Hand Cranked Fuel pump

Please visithttps://www.forc.org.uk/forc-items-for-sale.phphttps://www.forc.org.uk/forc-items-wanted.php

Why not bookmark them and check it on a regular basis, or use the links at the top of the www.forc.org.uk home page.

It's free to advertise. Tidied your garage out during lock-down and wondered what to do with those old bits you kept just in case? Wonder no more, get them up for sale on the club site, just email me – davecorby@forc.org.uk – the details(with pictures if you have them) and I’ll do the rest.

The FORC 'Quick Quiz'

1. What were the Thinwall Specials? 2. At which circuits are the following? a) Lodge Cornerb) Stirlings Bendc) Devils Elbow

3. What does CanAm stand for?

4. Which Norfolk driver:a) Won the British Saloon Car Championship twice?a) In which years?b) In what cars?

5. Lewis Hamilton’s first World F1 Championship win:a) Which race/year?b) Who finished second?c) Who finished third?

6. What do the following initials stand for:a) ERAb) BRM c) HWM

7. Sebastian Vettel won all four of his F1 World Championships for which team?

8. Which sports-car started off with a 269, went up to 289, and finally 427?

9. Run for five consecutive years from 1950-1954 what was the Carrera Panamericana?

10. Where and what is Pikes Peak International?

The FORC Events CalendarPlease make sure you have these FORC dates in your diaries!

Sunday 30th August

Exclusive to FORC Snetterton – The 7th Peter Andrews Memorial Sprint

At the time of writing this event is fully booked. A reserve list is running so please put your name down put now in case an entry becomes vacant.

….................…The 18th P W R Tulip Run.

Postponed to August/SeptemberLook out for news!

………………...Stradbroke Meetings – Whose coming?

As of 5th July we don’t know when or with whom our guest speaker programmecan resume. Our first date is 12 weeks time. We don’t know this far ahead whatarrangements will apply at Stradbroke Community Centre. Please think aboutwhether you will support the indoor events. We are taking things event by event.Keep an eye open for FORC Newsflashes, on www.forc.org.uk and the Newsletterfor news.

Wednesday 30th SeptemberJohn Fitzpatrick at StradbrokeBritish Saloon Car champion

European GT Champion – and the rest! ….........

Wednesday 28th OctoberMaitland Cook – The John Wyer Years

................ Wednesday 25th November

Rally Legend – Rosemary Smith…...............

Wednesday16th DecemberSteve Plater

British Supersport Champion, IoM TT Winner, etc.…................

Admission to Stradbroke meetings including Coffee/Tea & Cake and Cash Baris £10 cash per person on the door.

….....................................Other Outdoor events:

Stradbroke High School CARnivalAwaiting confirmationSunday 6th September

Please could you help the Scole Nature Trails Trust raise £2500 for new benches for their outdoor classroom. It does not involve parting with any money, a simple on-line vote could help secure the funding. If you could do this please log on to:

https://communityfund.calor.co.uk/ to register then search for 'Scole' on the projects page. Here you can watch and listen to our very first YouTube video about the project. Lower down you will find two voting buttons; 'Like Us' and 'Support Us'.

'Like Us' gives the project 1 vote and costs nothing.

'Support Us' gives the project 10 votes and requires an online donation.

The choice is yours, and all votes go towards our inclusion in the final selection for a grant from the Calor Rural Community Fund of £2,500.

Your help would be very much appreciated with this!

Regards. Leigh Trevail (on behalf of the SNTT)

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The Painting On The Cover:

Following the sad death of team founder Bruce McLaren (whilst testing the new Can-Am McLaren M8D-Chevrolet at Goodwood 50-years ago in 1970), Dan Gurney took his place as team mate to Denny Hulme. Dan and team reacted with thegreatest tribute possible to their fallen leader, winning on his debut at Mosport Park in Canada and again in the second race at Mont Tremblant. The Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Team won 9 of the 10 Can-Am races in 1970.

As always many thanks to Andrew Kitson for allowing the use of his artwork.

-

Postscript to David Witham's Formula Ford Article.

To realise how different those days were just see this page from the BRSCC’s British Racing News of November 1976.Just look who was the winner of Class C in the Direct Tapes Northern League Production Sports Car Championship. Happy days.

Quick Quiz Answers

1. Three single seater Ferraris bought in 1950-’53 by G A (Tony) Vandervell to develop ‘Thinwall’ shell bearings and give experience to engineers at Vandervell Products as they developed the Vanwall Grand Prix cars. One, driven by Giuseppe Farina, set the first 100 mph lap of Silverstone in 1953

2. a) Oulton Park b) Brands Hatch GP c) Lydden Hill

3. The Canadian-American Challenge Cup, or Can-Am, was an SCCA/CASC sports car racing series from 1966 to 1987. See the cover picture of this FORC Newsletter

4. Jack Sears won the British Saloon Car Championship twice, in 1958 & ‘63. In 1958 he drove an Austin A105 Westminster. In ‘63 he used a combination of Ford Galaxie, Cortina GT, and Lotus Cortina.

5. a) Canadian GP/2007 in McLaren Mercedes b) Nick Heidfeld/Sauber BMW c) Alexander Wurz/Williams Toyota

6. a) English Racing Automobiles b) British Racing Motorsc) Hersham & Walton Motors

7. Red Bull

8. Shelby Cobra

9. A Mexican Open Road race from one side of the country to the other a distance ofover 2000 miles.

10. An International 12 mile/4720 ft. Car and Motor-cycle Hill Climb on Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, USA.

Footnote to the Track Evening

Leon Spriddell’s Austin 7 Special was going round at a very respectable pace.