AMOC, St John Horsfall Meeting, Silverstone, 22 June, 2008

[John Turner]

Held, unusually for this meeting, on a Sunday, this year, I'm hoping to get to this. 10 races, I understand. This is the one to go to if you just love looking at Astons; always plenty of them of all ages in the inner circuit car parks, as well as on the track. Anyone else going?

[ChrisA]

Don't forget your brollies.....heavy rain forecast......sorry.

[brands]

Astons, big Healeys and Tigers....well worth a trip

[John Turner]

At the moment, I'm trying to decide whether I have a car that is both civilised and reliable enough to make it! However, I am hopeful, in which case I'll catch up with you at Luffield sometime, Brands. Is Bazookaman going?

[brands]

Originally Posted by John Turner

At the moment, I'm trying to decide whether I have a car that is both civilised and reliable enough to make it! However, I am hopeful, in which case I'll catch up with you at Luffield sometime, Brands. Is Bazookaman going?

Yes he is

[John Turner]

The best St John Horsfall for some years, I reckon, with grids well up on last year's, much of which is due to Mark Campbell's efforts. Some good racing too, on a sunny, but very windy, day. I was able to catch up with a number of Ten-Tenthers; in fact did so much chatting, I managed to miss the first couple of laps of the first race! Pics will be forthcoming!

[TimD]

Originally Posted by John Turner

... in fact did so much chatting, I managed to miss the first couple of laps of the first race! Pics will be forthcoming!

Ahem! Sorree!

Good to see you again, John.

Very good day's racing, especially that little giant-killing Frogeye Sprite which beat all but the 3000 in the Healey race, and a smashing tussle in the Formula Juniors, a category I tend not to look at too closely.

Sorry to see those two DB4s come in on the low loaders so very, very bent. Was everyone alright after all that?

[lml698]

No one hurt apart fro pride and wallet. The plan is to provide a bigger spectacle and more cars next year so watch this space

[brands]

Originally Posted by lml698

No one hurt apart fro pride and wallet. The plan is to provide a bigger spectacle and more cars next year so watch this space

It was an excellent meeting with lots of good racing, impressive and quality grids.
Next years meeting will be in my calender for 2009

[TorqueWench]

Nice to meet you too John - looking forward to the pictures. The Junior is out again this weekend at Brands - one among 105 Juniors racing (3 grids, all full) - well done Duncan!

[John Turner]

A few pics to set the scene.

This was a real privilege. Anne Wright, Secretary of the Aston Martin Heritage Trust, with no bidding from me but noting my interest in the car, kindly offered to allow me to sit in this Ulster 2/4 seater and take my picture!
This car was bequeathed to the AMOC in 1974 by Lewis Treece and passed into the care of the Trust when the latter was set up. A truly lovely car - thank you for your kindness, Anne:-
















Nick Mason's collection of prewar Le Mans Astons; I've nothing but respect for this guy who still brings some of his racing cars out to play, so that we can all see them. On this occasion, I finally plucked up courage to introduce myself, and whilst, I'm sure he was less than impressed with me approaching him when he was having a quiet moment with his family in his motorhome, he courteously heard me out. In response to one of my questions he confirmed that he had absolutely no problem with the fact that our site had a name so close to that of his own site! Thanks to Nick for his time; interestingly, the car I sat in above was restored 1979-81 by Morntane Engineering which, if I recall correctly, was a company which he helped set up:-

[Tim the Grey]

I found these on Flickr.

and


The photographer has said I can link them to here.

He's not bad, actually!
Posts on flickr.com as wembley_1966, if you wanted to see lots more old car pictures.

Apparently his office is next door to an Italian Classic restoration business...

[John Turner]

Tim, does this photographer have a name? If he is kind enough to allow us to post his pics, perhaps we should at least reciprocate by naming him!

Great shame about those DB4s. 19 is Robert Rawe's ex Peter Foster car and 86 is Jeremy Cooke's. I note that both ended their race on lap 9 of the Classic Race - did they have a coming together? I can't remember! The top two pics at least, when the Rawe car carried 18, I suggest were taken at Brands in May

[kipper]

Originally Posted by John Turner

Great shame about those DB4s. 19 is Robert Rawe's ex Peter Foster car and 86 is Jeremy Cooke's. I note that both ended their race on lap 9 of the Classic Race - did they have a coming together? I can't remember!

There was contact between the two of them at Becketts.

[John Turner]

Thanks, Kipper.

[Tim the Grey]

John, all I know is what I posted, wembley_1966, on flickr.

Feel free to invite him round, he does have some nice 'arty' pictures.

[John Turner]

Sponsored by J O Engineering a 14 car grid made up of Tigers and Alpines. A race over 15 minutes, with 13 finishers, 7 pics probably seems generous for a small field of similar looking cars, but they don't get much cover, do they, and there were a few good dices going on!

My favourite Tiger, apart from the Le Mans coupes, is this one, a car which I watched for several years being developed into what, I guess, is the quickest one within these shores. Always a joy to watch, Chris Beighton won comfortably by 15 seconds:-


At the other end of the field, Keith Hampson pedalled the very original looking 1962 Alpine Le Mans which only had a 1592cc engine to 13th:-


Always good value is Jackie Cochrane in what is probably the second quickest Tiger regularly racing over here. He finished 2nd:-


Quickest of the Alpines was that of Christopher Draycott who finished 8th:-


An 'Ooops' moment! Tristan Bradfield outbrakes himself and takes out Andrew Yates. Both in Tigers, Bradfield continued with little interruption to his progress to finish 5th, whilst, unsurprisingly, it took longer for Yates to get the car pointing the right way and back on to the track to finish 20 seconds behind in 6th:-


Now pay attention at the back; I might ask questions later! On the left is the unlikely battle between Andrew Davenall (83 - Tiger ) and Bryn Griffiths (88 - Alpine). They finished in that order 11th and 12th respectively, separated by just 3 tenths. In the middle about to lap them for the second time is Beighton who has just lapped Bradfield for the first time, whereas the latter is about to lap them for the first time! The recovery vehicle is stationary but is taking an anticipatory stance!:-


A great battle that went all the way to the line was between the Tigers of Peter Dod (33) and Simon James (99). They finished in that order, 3rd and 4th, just 2-tenths apart. Incidentally, Dod's car has, according to the programme, a 5700cc engine - printing error, or a non Ford V8?:-

[John Turner]

Trying to play catch up again! Too much historic racing - ho hum. Can't say I remember too much about this so am relying on the sequence of my pics and the results sheet.

17 cars started and all finished. I'm sure that Adrian Beecroft would admit that he is not the quickest driver around, but he has clearly improved his pace over the last couple of seasons sufficient to see off this field, albeit in the quickest car, his DBR1/300. That he brings this lovely amd valuable car out on a regular basis for us to see is great credit to him. He won this race by 21 seconds from David Reed's modified DB2, who in turn was 18 seconds ahead of 3rd place. I have pictured both cars before so will move on to 3rd place, David Bennett in his DB3S:-


For those of you wishing to note the visual differences between a DB2 and a DB2/4, this illustrates it well. The leading car here is the 1952 DB2 of Paul Chase-Gardner whose car was in the mildly modified class and finished 8th. Behind him is Douglas Barker's standard 1954 DB2/4 Mk1 which finished 9th:-


19 is Martyn Campbell's, Aston Martin Ulster, LM19, which finished 16th. On the outside and lapping the older car is Nicholas Ruddell (40) and Paul Baldwin (54) both in DB MkIIIs. Baldwin was to pass Ruddell to take 4th, but less than 2 seconds separated them at the end:-


Colin Campbell in his trusty old DB2 is being lapped by Peter Dubski's highly modified 1935 (2-litre) MkII and the DB MKIII of Simon Jeffries. Dubski finished 11th and Jeffries, 10th. In the background is the winning DBR1/300 of Adrian Beecroft:-


So often wrongly called a DB3, even by commentator's who should know better, the front car is a DB MkIII, a road car and the final iteration of the DB2/4 series. This is Jon Gross's 1957 example which finished 7th. Behind is the real DB3, a much rarer car built for proper road racing in 1952. It was not really quick enough and was replaced by the DB3S the following year. This is Mark Midgley's car which finished 6th:-


Mark Campbell negotiates Luffield in his DB2/4, on his way to 12th whilst, in the background Paul Baldwin enters Brooklands:-

[John Turner]

A good entry of 31 cars split into several classes depending on model and level of modification. This was a race full of incident and controversy. At the start, Chris Scragg had the lead in his V8 (3) from the similar car of Les Goble(78) with the the DBS V8 of Bob Searles (44) and the DB4 (39) of Stephen Moore in fairly close attendance. The leaders have already gone through on the first lap when there was a very heavy coming together in Brooklands between Paul Hipwell (14 - V8) and Geoffrey Lewis (V8 - 15), with Martin Wright (DBS V8 - 73) going off in avoidance. 96 is Alam Hudd's DB4 Lightweight which did not finish:-


Whilst Hipwell toured round to retire in the pits and Wright returned to the race, Lewis's car remained beached. Here Scragg and Goble come through whilst attempts are made to shift it:-


This is still going on when the leaders come through again:-


However the car defied all attempts at persuading it to leave this location and it actually finished up further on the track and the decision to red flag the race was made. In the foreground is Nicholas King's DB4 which went on to finish 8th in the restarted race:-


On the way however he also spun! Martin Brewer (53) finished 5th in his DB5 and David Scott (25) in his modern N24 was 6th:-


The racing was close! Here we see 21 (John Goldsmith - DB6 - 17th), 67 (John Lock - DB4 Vantage - 13th), 8 (Steven Byrne - DB4 - 12th) and 24 (Tom Black - N24 - 14th):-


Scragg held the lead for every lap except the last. Goble had closed up on him but a mistake by Scragg seemed the only possible opportunity that Goble had. However, he snatched the lead under what Scragg claimed to be yellow flags. Goble claimed otherwise and the result stood with him the winner. Searles was 3rd, Moore, 4th:-

[AGD A105/6]

Thanks for the report John, nice pics too!
Indeed I had a fabulous race with Bryn - GYU's first track outing since last year's Spa smash, and it ran very well - but any race Alpine can outcorner a road Tiger like mine, especially now I've reverted to solid discs in anticipation of FIA papers, so not such an unlikely battle!
Peter Dod's car has a 351 Ford engine, bit bigger than the 260 or 289s originally fitted, there are a few similar conversions. a 427 is more challenging but it has been done!
Cheers, Andrew

[John Turner]

Andrew, great to hear from you and additional info from drivers is always very well received. It helps clarify issues that aren't obvious to a spectator's eyes. Two posts in 9 months? Don't be a stranger!

[John Turner]

19 wonderful prewar Astons lined up for this, AMOC's annual tribute to the man who regularly raced Astons both before and after the war and won the 1948 Spa 24 hours race for them.

In the absence of the Freemans Spa Special, Andy Bell had this race pretty much sewn up in the 2-litre Speed Model, Red Dragon. Here he negotiates Luffield, whilst in the background, Jane Varley enters Brooklands. At this stage 3rd (Peter Dubsky is out of sight between the corners, in his MkII), Varley went onto move ahead of Dubsky to finish 2nd, 12.9 seconds down on Bell:-


All red, but not an Italian car in sight! The battle for 4th, between Richard Lake (28 - Speed Model) and Nick Mason (21 - LM 21) was very close for 10 laps until Mason retired the ex works Aston. In the background, Holly Mason, who was to finish 6th in LM 17 tries to hang on:-


Christopher Scott Mackirdy (20 - Le Mans Special) and Keith Piper (6 - International) battle it out, with Piper prevailing in the older car to take 8th. In the background, Gordon Riseley in his Le Mans model. He finished 11th:-


Annette Mason took LM 18 to 10th:-


David Ozanne (9) went onto take 5th place in his Speed Model. Here, he is just ahead of David Taylor, who finished 7th, also in a Speed model:-


Jim Campbell in a very 'standard' looking 15/98 was placed 16th of the 17 finishers:-

[John Turner]

Sponsored by Rawles Motorsport and split into 5 classes, this attracted 22 cars to the grid. Now, I know that a lot of people like to see 'littluns beat bigguns' but I'm not a great subscriber to that view (with certain exceptions!) and I still find it incongruous to see Sprites beat big Healeys. It's happened a lot in recent years, and it is not exactly surprising when the Sprites are fitted with 1380cc engines. The quick Sprites are pretty close to modsports spec, with brakes, handling and power to weight ratios which make them formidable opposition to the quicker versions of the big Healeys. So after that preamble, I am rather pleased to say that on this occasion, the mighty battle at the front of this field between David Grace (17 - Healey 3000 Mk1) and Paul Campfield (11 - Frogeye Sprite) was resolved in the bigger car's favour by half a second:-


Anthony Bolton's Sebring Sprite which came 10th:-


Mike Thorne was 14th in his Sprite:-


The Austin Healey Sebring of Eric Woolley which came 6th:-


Steve Bicknell brought his 100/6 home in 8th place:-


Oldest car in the race, by some margin, and the only one in his class, was the 100M of Mark Pangbourne who finished 19th of the 20 classified finishers:-

[John Turner]

Another round of the Miller Oils sponsored championship, with 25 starters, 21 finishers and the usual close racing. I had a long chat with James Murray in the paddock before qualifying, and as I walked away, I suggested he ought to put his Lola Mk5A on pole! His response was something along the lines of 'no chance', so I had a bit of a chuckle when the timing sheets showed that he had done exactly that by 3-tenths from Mike Hibberd.

Unfortunately, for James, he made a poor start and got swallowed up by the following couple of rows, came around at the end of the first lap in 4th, with Hibberd (51 - Lotus 27) already having made a break which was decisive. He was to build a gap that was to see him take the chequered flag by 4 seconds. The chasing group of 5 cars fought closely and at this stage included the fast starting Chris Drake, up to 3rd from 6th on the grid:-


Meanwhile, the noisiest car in the field was the Degrada of James Steerman. Unfortunately, on lap 9, he pulled the car off the track on the approach to Brooklands:-


Chris Drake spun going into Brooklands and in the ensuing avoidance, James Claridge (52 - Lola mk5A) also slipped ahead putting James Murray down to 5th. Here JM gets his head down to get back into contention:-


Sue Spence presses on in the family Elva 200 to finish 20th. In the background, the Caravelle of Richard Utley, 21st:-


As Mike Hibberd, the leader, heads away through Woodcote, the battle for 2nd continues to rage out of Luffield, with Andrew Hibberd (52 - Lotus 22) leading the chase, followed by Sam Wilson (53 - Cooper T59) and James Claridge:-


John Delane took his Lotus 18 to 10th and a class C win:-


The similarly mounted John Hutchinson was 15th:-


The battle for 2nd continues unabated and Claridge has passed Wilson, and Murray has now latched onto the back of the group:-


Meanwhile, Chris Drake having recovered from his spin was never able to get back to the above group, and to be fair his lap times were never able to match those of the first 5. He finished 6th, 40 seconds down on the winner, in his Brabham BT6. Here he laps Duncan Rabagliati in the Alexis HF1 which finished 18th:-


James Murray took 4th from Andrew Hibberd in the closing laps by diving up the inside at Luffield, and making it stick. He was just 2-tenths behind 3rd place Claridge at the flag with Wilson a further half second ahead in 2nd:-

[John Turner]

A very big grid of 37 cars of which 34 finished. Jachie Cochrane was on pole with his Sunbeam Tiger but it was Chris Scragg who took the initiative and led for many laps from a shadowing Cochrane until he had to pull the Aston V8into the pits to retire. Cochrane then won as he pleased, by 34 seonds:-


Another car to retire was the sole Jaguar representative, the XJS of Lawrence Coppock:-


Peter Foster, no longer Aston DB4 mounted, drove this Healey 3000 to 29th. Behind is Alex Mansfield, who stayed there, to finish 30th in his Porsche 944:-


98 is the DB4 of Les Goble and 73 is the DBS V8 of Martin Wright. They were to swap places by the end to finish 31st and 32nd:-


88 is the Porsche 993RSR of Peter Penfold who finished 15th whilst Nathan Dod's Tiger was the third of our retirees:-


Steven Byrne (8 - DB4 - 19th) negotiates Luffield whilst Clive Bailey (25 - Porsche 911 - 22nd) exits Brooklands and is about to be lapped by the leaders:-


40 (Rikki Cann - DBS V8) laps Sam Whitman (30 - Ferrari 328GTB - 25th) on his way to 13th. Behind is 14th place Dave Stockton in his Porsche 944 Turbo:-


Clive Bailey (25 - Porsche 911), David Such (57 - Aston V8) and Stephen Archer (9 - allegedly a 964RS, but looks more like a 944 to me!!) finished this close and in this order, 22nd, 23rd and 24th:-


Oh, and since I haven't mentioned them yet, Stephen Moore was 2nd in DB4 and Charlie White, 3rd in Ferrari F355 Challenge.