Behind the first three rows were amassed the quick Austin Healey 100s, 3 of which had remarkably close qualifying times and promised great racing, with only the Peter Mann entered Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica of the very experienced John Ure to trouble them along with, a little further back , Stephen Bond in the Lister Bristol 'Flatiron' breaking up their ranks. Behind this group James Bilderbeck had qualified the neat little Turner Climax an excellent 16th just ahead of Mark Hoble's similar open version fitted with a BMC A series engine. There followed several rows consisting of AC Aces, Lotus Elites and a number of singleton entries, all of which I will mention during the course of this report but I record the fact that David Cottingham was sharing his AC Ace with Adrian King who prepares the car and cheekily outqualified David! One of the Lotus Elites was new to us, that of Gideon Hudson, sharing his car with Josh Sadler, both well known racers but both first time out with us. In amongst them was the David Graus Frazer Nash Targa Florio, a very rare car, into which David had slotted his secret weapon for the first stint, Martin Stretton,  one of our top drawer historic racers. The back row was propped up by the Craig McWilliam Kieft Climax with just 1100cc and therefore the smallest car in the race and Keith Hampson in the Sunbeam Alpine Le Mans but Keith had some problems in practice and I fully expected him to go a bit quicker in the race. Throughout the grid were some very close qualifying times so plenty of dicing was not an unreasonable expectation for the race.

Race

We were once again blessed with dry bright weather for the start, the sun glinting off 33 superb looking and well prepared cars as they rounded Woodcote to line up on the grid. At the start, the Maserati was out dragged by both the Kurtis and Ferrari, whilst the Aston took the Maserati going into Copse. Martin Hunt in the HWM following the Aston's tighter line also challenged the poleman so that Guillermo soon found himself down to fifth. Behind the first six, John Ure had made a splendid start in the Frazer Nash whilst alongside Jonathan Abecassis had bogged down a bit and became surrounded by fellow Austin Healey drivers who had qualified behind him. The rest of the grid, closely bunched, streamed safely through Copse.

By the time the cars reached Brooklands for the first time, the Ferrari had snatched the lead from the Kurtis, James Cottingham working the wheel through Luffield and into Woodcote chased by 32 cars strung out behind, many in very close order.     

As they crossed the line for the first time, the Ferrari had a small gap over the Kurtis who similarly led Martin Hunt's HWM which had simply out accelerated the Aston along the pit straight, that extra half litre as telling today as it was 60 odd years ago. The Maserati had also moved alongside the Aston although Steve held the inside line going into Copse for the second time whilst the C - Type had also closed in. As you would expect the 6 sports racers had pulled clear of the chasing pack, consisting of 3 Austin Healeys, and the John Ure driven Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica. Jonathan Abecassis had recovered much of the ground that he had lost at the start but given the similar lap times between the 3 front running Austin Healeys, the time he had lost was going to be difficult to recover and he also had the John's Frazer Nash snapping at his heels. The biggest loser on lap 1 was James Bilderbeck, who had qualified the Turner Climax an excellent 16th. In his own words, he 'had probably one of my worst starts ever and plummeted from 16th to pretty much the back of the grid…'. He finished that first lap in 28th place.

Behind John Ure, with a touch of symmetry, ran another group of 3 Austin Healeys and a single Frazer Nash. Jason Harris led Paul Mortimer and Austin Kinsella (in John Briggs rare 100S version) chased hard by Martin Stretton who, not unexpectedly, had made up places in the Targa Florio. Unfortunately, 2 of this group were not to emerge from Copse in raceworthy condition. Going into Copse, Paul, carrying more speed took the inside line to overtake Jason who, in order to leave space, took action to correct his line through the corner just sufficient enough to destabilise the car and throw it into a spin. Behind, Martin taking a wide line in the Frazer Nash was briefly unsighted by the Austin Kinsella car and was confronted by the spinning 401 car.  Naturally, this all happened so much more quickly than it takes to describe and despite Martin's best efforts to avoid it, the Frazer Nash struck the Austin Healey quite heavily in the rear and to quote Jason 'turning the boot lid into a large Frisbee and the car into a pickup without a tailgate'. Fortunately, the drivers suffered no injury but this could not be said of the cars, both retiring immediately from the race.

Close racing continued through the field but one car in particular was making big gains. Paul Ziller in the TR2, had started 26th but was up to 20th by the end of lap 1 and had improved further to 15th by the end of lap 2. He had decided that even though Mark Hoble was racing the Turner rather than his TR2, Mark would still be the challenge, notwithstanding the fact that the Turner had qualified 4 rows ahead! Mark himself was becoming embroiled in battle with Mike Freeman's Lotus Elite. Further back, James Bilderbeck in the other Turner, after his poor start was still playing himself in and taking time to build up to full speed which enabled Nigel Batchelor to harry him briefly in the little Cooper MG. There was plenty to take in. 

As the leaders headed into lap 3, they had split into 3 pairs, with the Kurtis chasing the leading Ferrari, the HWM alongside the Maserati and the Aston and the C -type in close combat. The gap to the chasing Austin Healey's of Nick Matthews and Richard Woolmer had grown a little, whilst Jonathan Abecassis and John Ure were still trying to close them down. Although the field was beginning to spread out it was still punctuated with some really close racing. David Cottingham in his AC Ace was being pressed by Gideon Hudson in his Lotus Elite, the yellow of the Lotus providing a striking contrast to the electric blue of the AC, and a little further back another engaging Ace/Elite battle between Mark Morgan and John Waterhouse was entertaining us. Behind them, James Bilderbeck (Turner), Nigel Batchelor (Cooper MG) and Barry Dye (Lotus Elite) were keeping close order.       

Back at the front, it was all change as James Cottingham spun the Ferrari into Brooklands and handed the lead to Chris Keen in the Kurtis. Martin Hunt in the HWM followed James off and felt that there may have been a bit of fluid down to cause their off track excursions. In any event, Guillermo Fierro Eleta also benefitted, the Maserati now up to 2nd. James returned to the track rapidly and he only lost 7 seconds, resuming in 3rd just under 3 seconds behind the Maserati. Martin also returned to the track but he had lost about 12 seconds and completed lap 3 in 9th, the HWM tucked in behind Jonathan Abecassis' Austin Healey, so had it all to do again. There were still good clusters of cars behind and even Craig McWilliam in the smallest car of the race was keeping Matthew Collings in the largest, well in sight, the little Kieft completing lap 3 just 2.5 seconds behind the HWM. 

Over the next couple of laps, there was little change in the running order with the Kurtis maintaining a 3 second lead over the Maserati, with James Cottingham gradually bringing the Ferrari back into contention closing only marginally but inexorably on the Maserati on each lap. However, Richard Woolmer had squeezed ahead of Nick Matthews in their titanic Austin Healey battle for what had become 6th place and Martin Hunt displaced Jonathan Abecassis in his recovery drive to take 8th place by the end of lap 4 to head after Richard and Nick.. On the same lap Brian Arculus was, as usual, the first to take his compulsory pit stop in the Zagato 'double bubble' Alfa. He was followed in by James Bilderbeck in the Turner Climax, hoping to give himself the opportunity of a long second stint in which to get into his stride and try to recover some of the ground lost on the first lap. For most, however, stops were several laps away - the pit window being open for the middle 20 minutes of this 30 minute race.

A good dice had developed between Gideon Hudson, who had finally shaken of David Cottingham's AC Ace, and Peter Campbell who had worked his way up to the back of the yellow Elite, in the unique Wingfield Bristol Special.  Alex Quattlebaum had brought the LECo up to 16th from a 24th starting position. On lap 6, the leaders started to lap the backmarkers and this coupled with the onset of pit stops made it difficult to follow the race order, particularly down the field.

On lap 9 Richard Woolmer and Jonathan Abecassis pitted their Austin Healeys, Jonathan having actually moved passed Richard whose rear brakes had started to fade. Richard returned to the race but wisdom on young shoulders dictated that without an immediate solution to the brake problem, a reduction to his lap times by about 2 seconds was warranted and thus he was denied the opportunity to attempt to be the first Austin Healey home and class 3 winner.   Jonathan, on the other hand, emerged from the pits with his sights set firmly on catching Nick Matthews for that honour.   

We have seen that Rüediger Friedrichs in the Jaguar C type had made a pass on the Steve Boultbee-Brooks Aston DB3S on lap 3 and with Martin Hunt's 'off' at the end of the lap they were ensconced firmly in 4th and 5th places respectively. The Jaguar opened up a lead of about 3 seconds over the Aston, but thereafter Steve first stabilised that gap and then started to peg it back a little. Lapping other cars caused it to fluctuate slightly but the fightback only ended when the Aston pitted on lap 12. The Jaguar pitted the following lap but it was a long stop and when he rejoined, Rudi was well down on the Aston. All was not well with the C-type and after another slow lap it was retired as Rudi had started to experience power loss, later identified as a problem with the distributor. This was resolved in time for this splendid vehicle to participate later in the VSCC's own 1950s Sports Racing Car race.

Another car to retire from the race was Martin Hunt's HWM although 'retire' doesn't quite convey its drama. On lap 10, as Martin recounted, 'I had Steve Brooks in my sights, when without warning, at the end of the Wellington straight, my brake pedal went to the floor, leaving me with no brakes at all!  I changed down, and began to enter the corner, but with far too much speed, and all I could think of was to put the car into a spin and hope for the best – I got away with it, but it took a while for my heart rate to return to normal.  We later discovered that one of the rear shoes had delaminated, leading to the piston coming out and total loss of brake fluid!'  Heart stopping indeed.

James Cottingham's run at the Maserati was also disrupted by lapping, but more often than not was applying pressure,  and, on occasion, getting ahead through Brooklands and Luffield only to be overtaken again out of Woodcote, 3 litres of Maserati naturally having the edge over 2 litres of Ferrari. It was a wonderful sight watching these two circulating so closely together for several laps until James pitted the Ferrari on lap 16. Earlier on, Chris Keen, still leading in the Kurtis, who had been circulating about 3 seconds ahead of the battling pair, had pitted on lap 11 and emerged about a lap and 7 seconds down. Further back, John Waterson (Lotus Elite) had finally got the better of Nigel Batchelor in the Cooper, despite concern over noises which seemed to emanate from the differential. John eventually backed off and after a couple of slow laps decided that discretion over valour was necessary and retired the Lotus on lap 17 - investigation of the problem continues at the time of writing. 

Whilst the Ferrari had pitted on Lap 16, the Maserati sailed on, showing no signs of stopping. When James returned to the track he had managed to leapfrog the Kurtis, turning a 4.5 second deficit before Chris pitted the Kurtis on lap 11 into a 5 second lead on James first flying lap after he pitted on lap 16. Analysis shows that on the last flying lap before pitting and the first flying lap after pitting, the Ferrari was around 1.5 seconds quicker in total than the Kurtis similar laps. In addition, the Kurtis combined in and out laps also took approximately 6 seconds longer than the Ferrari. Looking at other car pit stops and trying to take into account their performance, the figures suggests that Chris's entry to, and exit from, the pits, were a bit gentler than some of the others and it had cost him. Wake up at the back there; are you still with me? So, now, whilst the Maserati was leading on the road, effectively the Ferrari was leading the Kurtis in the race, as Guillermo had yet to pit the Maserati.

On his lap 16, James Bilderbeck spun his Turner in Luffield and, as a result, had lost at least another 35 seconds by the time he was back up to speed. One of the cars to pass him whilst he was stationary, was Mark Morgan's AC Ace Bristol, who was delighted to just hold the Turner off for several laps to the end despite it being potentially 2.5 seconds per lap quicker. It had not been a good race for James.

On his lap 17, Martyn Corfield, who for several laps, had been immersed in an intense dice with Alex Quattlebaum's LECo (their best laps were separated by 3/100ths!) retired his Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica with a puncture. He had detected a slow deflation some laps earlier but had hoped that it would get to the end without fully deflating, but it was not to be and he became the 6th, but not the last, retirement in this race.    

Drama and action continued to attend this race right to the end and beyond. Given the closeness of their lap times it seemed that the Kurtis was unlikely to catch the Ferrari but on lap 21, the Ferrari was seen to slow and James gently cruised it into retirement from fuel rail failure. At the same time, Guillermo serenely passed the pitlane entrance again. It was his last opportunity to stop the Maserati within the pit window instantly incurring a 3 minute penalty which should have put him well down the field and Chris Keen was, barring mishap, home and dry.  Shortly after James retired the Ferrari, Paul Ziller also pitted to retire his TR2, more than a little annoyed that his rear wheel studs had snapped after such a good run. They were the last two retirements in a race that had been both eventful and had more than the usual amount of attrition, particularly amongst the front runners. Steve Boultbee-Brooks brought the Aston home 2nd although initially was told he was the winner and a very surprised Jonathan Abecassis took 3rd having finally caught Nick Matthews in traffic and nipped passed him on their last lap. Richard Woolmer took 5th despite his reduced pace, but was almost pipped on the line by Mike Freeman in the first of the Lotus Elites. John Ure was next up with the only Frazer Nash to take the flag, well clear of Mark Hoble in the Turner who was just ahead of Paul Mortimer in the Austin Healey 100M and Stephen Bond completed the top 10 in the Lister Bristol.

After some initial confusion at the podium as to the final race order, the Kurtis was correctly declared the winner. The Maserati was given a 3 minute penalty for failing to take his pit stop but by some curious anomaly was still 'officially' listed in the results as 2nd as it had been the only other car to complete 26 laps, but with the time penalty properly applied this mathematically could not be correct and commonsense prevailed and Steve was 2nd in the Aston and Jonathan 3rd in the Austin Healey. It was very unfortunate for Guillermo for there seems little doubt that had he pitted correctly the Maserati would have been on the podium. It seems that being involved with 4 races at the meeting he had attended just one drivers briefing and gained the impression that all the races were without stops which was true in every case but ours.

The full results are listed below. Please note that the driver pairings are as listed rather than on the official results sheet. I would like to add that in consultation with Richard Culverhouse, the writer presented Adrian King with the Driver of the Day award. His had been a really excellent first time out drive in the AC Ace shared with owner David Cottingham.

Finally a big thank you to all the drivers, the VSCC, their officials, the marshals  and to Woolmer Classic Engineering for providing our excellent hospitality and base. JT

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