Masters Top Hat Snetterton 29 March.

[Andrew Kitson]

Some photos taken by my pal Richard Styles, posted with his permission.
Mike Wrigley won the 'Oldies but Goldies' by two laps in his rapid A35! Leading down Revett on lap 1. A bit of a change to his usual F1 & F5000 mounts.


First time into Riches for the Cloth Cap brigade:


Winner Chris Scragg:


Richard has lived within earshot of Snett all of his life and has had his photos published since the mid '60s. Most 'Autosport' Snett reports from the past 20+ years or so feature his photos, including this week's issue showing Lynn's Capri. All photos copyright Richard Styles. Thanks Rich!

[John Turner]

20 starters to this 45 minute race with 13 finishers, one of those, the Fiat Abarth only completing 17 laps against the winners 28 laps, so a blunt and simple assessment would suggest a few more starters and a bit more reliability wouldn't go amiss. The performance of most of these cars, is light years ahead of their pace when in contemporary racing, and, as a layman, I can't help wondering whether the additional stress on components of such elderly designs, however much rebuilt and well put together now, might be a contributory factor. Not a criticism; just a thought. These cars are great fun to watch, and I think I took more pics of this race than any other at this meeting, and was most happy with the results.

The quickest car in qualifying and in the race was the 1360cc A35 of Mike Wrigley, and he led from start to finish. You will see him leading the pack in Richard Style's picture above posted by Andrew. Here he is at the end of the Revett Straight for the second time, and you can see that he and Richard Postins A40 have already opened up a sizeable gap. In fact, whilst Wrigley edged away, Postins seemed to peg the lead at about 2 seconds for a few laps, and briefly gave us hope that we had a race on our hands. However, the A40 lost power after half a dozen or so laps, and on lap 15 lost oil pressure and pulled off on the outside of Esses. Thereafter Wrigley stroked it home to win by a lap. Behind them in this picture is the Ford Zodiac of Adam Gittings, and while the front two were leaving him, so too, was he leaving the rest of the field. He had a pretty lonely race until he also retired on lap 11:-


The real action in this race was going on behind the front three and there was some really good dicing down the field. This was one, between the Austin A105 of Jim Woodley/Iain Rowley and the Wolseley 1500 of Cawthorn/Cawthorn. When the bigger car finally subdued the Wolseley challenge it moved up to become embroiled in a battle with the big Mk7 Jaguar of Harris/Tart, again coming out victorious and finishing 2nd. The Jaguar was 3rd, the Wolseley 4th:-


This one went down to the flag, David Griffiths Standard Vanguard III beating the MG Magnette of Bruce Chapman by 1.7 seconds after 47 minutes of racing. They were 7th and 8th respectively:-


Spring travel you wouldn't believe! The A35 of Cliff Ryan and Gary Davis failed to finish:-


A racing incident? With my neutral cap on, my 'take' on this was that the Cawthorn Wolseley came into the second part of the Esses, a little slower than usual, and left a small but tempting gap for Julius Thurgood (Volvo Amazon) to go for. However, starting an overtake move on the outside, as you enter the first part the Esses, with the hope of completing that move on the inside for the second part is both difficult and ambitious, and usually requires the full cooperation of the driver in front, assuming that he has seen you. The fact is that the Wolseley was on the racing line, the Volvo wasn't, when it tagged the nearside rear and turned him round. You decide! I have the sequence of shots which will appear elsewhere (he said subtly!):-


Beautiful (car) and brave (owner/driver). The DB2, although probably the oldest in the race, would have shown a clean pair of heels to most of this grid in period but here was propping up the back of the field along with the Ford Anglia 100E of Ed Glaister. Worth probably 3 times more than any other car on the grid, you have to admire David Allen and Paul Chase-Gardener for bringing it out, and with novice cross on the back. Well done guys, and thanks. Glorious.

[simon drabble]

it says something asto how developed these cars are if Ed Glaister's car is at the back of the field. He developed this car himself from a scrapper many years ago and under the bonnet its like a work of art with copper piping etc... he and his son are no slouches and the car is quick so the front runners must be ridiculous fast!
As an aside I think I am correct in saying that Ed has something to do with the Yimkin - did his brother actually design and build it? A top family and exactly what historic racing should be all about.....

[Andrew Kitson]

Originally Posted by simon drabble

it says something asto how developed these cars are if Ed Glaister's car is at the back of the field. He developed this car himself from a scrapper many years ago and under the bonnet its like a work of art with copper piping etc... he and his son are no slouches and the car is quick so the front runners must be ridiculous fast!
As an aside I think I am correct in saying that Ed has something to do with the Yimkin - did his brother actually design and build it? A top family and exactly what historic racing should be all about.....

Here is the car Simon.

[Yimkin]

Originally Posted by simon drabble

it says something asto how developed these cars are if Ed Glaister's car is at the back of the field. He developed this car himself from a scrapper many years ago and under the bonnet its like a work of art with copper piping etc... he and his son are no slouches and the car is quick so the front runners must be ridiculous fast!
As an aside I think I am correct in saying that Ed has something to do with the Yimkin - did his brother actually design and build it? A top family and exactly what historic racing should be all about.....

Simon, thanks for that, very nice of you to say so! The 100E was bought in the late 60's early 70's (can't remember!) by my dad as a write off - he was charged a fiver for it, but he didn't want the engine, so the scrapper charged him 4.50 so long as he took the engine out himself (!). It was a rally car (including stage rallies against rs2000's) for years and had two resto's before coming out as a racer in 1996/7. As an aside I used to go to school hanging onto the roll cage in the back (no rear seats!)

With regard to Yimkin (my user name as you will see!), yes and no!, it was don sim (of diva fame) who designed it - it was a road/clubmans car, of which two were made as juniors, of which we had one - dad bought it as a wreck and restored it in 1984, and came second in the front engined class in 85 - his first race season! At around about that time my uncle was european FJ champion in a Mallock U2. The yimkin went to italy, to the museum at monza - it's now owned and raced, and I would love it back! It's a lovely car, very characteristic of the whole kind of chapman era of design.

[zefarelly]

100E's rock, so much more class than a spridget with an A35 skin !

[John Turner]

Ooooh contentious, Zef! Have to admit it's great to see the 100E out, though, always enjoy watching it, and as Simon says not usually quite as far back in the field as it was last weekend. Good on yer, Ed

[John Turner]

Another 45 minute race, the majority of the field were Stars of the 70s with only 4 starters for the Touring 70s. The latter group had the two quickest cars in the field and, in fact all 4 left the grid in front of the Stars cars. Shaun Lynn, on pole, led and the only car to keep in touch was the well driven Escort Mk1 RS 1600 of Pantellis Christoforou. The rain which had affected the latter stages of the previous race had all but stopped but the track was still wet and the sky heavily overcast. Here, out of the Esses, heading towards the Bombhole for the first time is Lynn, Christoforou and David Thomas. Lynn was in control of this race until a sticking throttle forced him to pit after 18 laps. Christoforou went on to an untroubled victory, with Thomas 2nd:-


Same place, same lap, and closer racing in the Stars of the 70s race. Robert Rawes (ex Peter Foster) Lightweight DB4 leads the two Morgan plus 8s of Paul Conway and Richard Plant and Harry Wyndham's E-type. The Aston won, with Conway 6th, Plant 5th, and Wyndham 3rd, so there was quite a bit of swapping round:-


The irrespressible young Joe Twyman was a trifle miffed to get a drive through for a jumped start but still managed 4th in the 'Stars' race, in his Lotus 7, series 3:-


Peter Mallett started several laps late from the pitlane, and I hope he will forgive me for showing this on what I believe was only his 2nd lap out, but it was a spectacular slide into the Esses which unfortunately, I only captured once he got onto the grass. He was to finish last but once he got going was lapping quicker tha several cars ahead of him:-


3rd and final finisher in the Touring 70's race was Jeremy Cooke in his 911RS:-


Classic 1960s British GTs in the Stars of the 70s race (not a complaint, just an observation!). Martin Brewer's DB5 leads Harry Wyndham. Brewer was to finish 2nd in the Stars race:-

[zefarelly]

not at all John!

Eds testing a new 1100 motor to get out of the A35 1400cc class, as the 100E is ridiculously, not allowed to run DCOE40's as FJ engines did in period, its no match for the A35's on SU's especially as the 100E is a heavy car by comparisson, there is also the level of prep to consider, Eds car is very period correct which as we all know isn't competitive in todays fields

[zefarelly]

what no indicators . . .its not a BMW !

Originally Posted by John Turner

Peter Mallett started several laps late from the pitlane, and I hope he will forgive me for showing this on what I believe was only his 2nd lap out, but it was a spectacular slide into the Esses which unfortunately, I only captured once he got onto the grass. He was to finish last but once he got going was lapping quicker tha several cars ahead of him:-

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by John Turner

Peter Mallett started several laps late from the pitlane, and I hope he will forgive me for showing this on what I believe was only his 2nd lap out, but it was a spectacular slide into the Esses which unfortunately, I only captured once he got onto the grass. He was to finish last but once he got going was lapping quicker tha several cars ahead of him:-

The story lifted from the Racing Driver's Book of Excuses page 35 (Rain Tyres the Use Thereof).

We looked at the sky and got the wets out. I pressured them and had them next to the car ready to fit. Then the sky brightened up and so I kept the fat dry (minimum tread) tyres on.

I got to the assembly area and with about ten miniutes before the race the rain started on our side of the track. Some people returned to their paddock places and changed to wets. However stupidly I had packed mine away on the tyre rack and it would take longer than a few minutes to sort them out. Hence I went out on dry tyres.

The reason for starting in the pitlane was because on the warm up lap the car developed a misfire. I now know that it was fuel vapourisation and as such would have gone away but at the time I decided to pit and thus missed the start while we changed plug leads etc.

The fuel vapourisation was why I missed the March Hare race too.

I'm hoping that this is my quota of bad calls/luck for the year because I knew I could beat the Camaro that was ahead of me on the grid.

[terence]

Now thats the reason I decided to use the Egg Timer and not the stop watch.

[Peter Mallett]

Didn't the Shaun Lynn Capri look great though?

[rogerwills]

Sounded fantastic too!

[simon drabble]

Mr Lynn is rapidly building the ultimate stable of cars!!!!

[John Turner]

Last race of the day, and although not starting late, the light was failing quite badly due to the overcast weather, and that's my excuse for the following 'interesting' pics! This had mainly cars from the other races plus a couple that hadn't appeared earlier but was only for 20 minutes, so I'm not sure why you would do this one, only! On pole was Mark Fowler's Ford Capri, once it was known that Shaun Lynn would not race his Capri. Alongside, was David Edwards in Camaro, but it was couple of cars on the back row that we needed to keep an eye on; Joe Twyman's Lotus 7 and Roger Wills Corvette Sting Ray.

Fowler duly converted pole into a lead but another lightning start from the back by Twyman soon had him up to third and then 2nd to put pressure on Fowler. After a couple of laps Fowler pushed too hard through Coram and got sideways, and you can see here that Twyman took his opportunity to take the lead:-


He was really on it, knowing that somewhere not far behind was an equally determined Wills trying to make up for his less than satisfactory day. When the Sting Ray caught him, Twyman who was beginning to have problems with the car made a similar error to Fowler in Coram only this time did a better job, by bouncing across the grass and re emerging onto the track out of Russell Bend still (just) ahead of Wills. What Joe hadn't realised was that during this off track excursion he had managed to break a couple of bones in his hand, as well as not improving his car. Undaunted, he pressed on even after he had lost the lead:-


Meanwhile a shortlived dice was going on further back. Jean-Francois Decaux (14 - BMW 1800Ti) finished 6th, but Claire Tippett in the similar car dropped back to 12th, and Henry Mann failed to finish in the Capri:-


Twyman's increasing maladies, both mechanical and physical, allowed the Camaro of David Edwards both to close, and then snatch 2nd on the line:-


David Allen won his 3 car battle to take 7th in his XK140 SE:-


Roger Wills steadily improved his lap times as he exteded his lead to win by 24 seconds:-


And that's it. All the above pics and plenty more from this meeting will appear on my site asap.

[Andrew Kitson]

Bravo John!

[Peter Mallett]

Well done John from your report I feel like I was there!

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Well done John from your report I feel like I was there!

[rogerwills]

Great report John. I have some wonderful in-car video footage from the start of the March Hare race. I was at the very back of the grid having not qualified with Joe Twyman in the Seven in front. We both got absolute flyers of a start (up the grass on the left hand side!) and I believe we were 3rd and 4th into the first corner! The video is brilliant. Unfortunately I had to sign a form to have the camera in the car where I agree to pay £25,000 if I post the footage on the internet or publish it!

[terence]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Well done John from your report I feel like I was there!

Me to,but I cant remember.

[zefarelly]

surely yellow No plates on pre66 aren't FiA legal Roger ?

[rogerwills]

I know, I know. The thing was I was running the Vette in the Historic Road Sports on Sunday at Donington and the car must have V5, tax disc, number plates etc. We only decided to run it on about Thursday and that was the best the guys could do in the time available.

[rogerwills]

What I didn't say is that the huge yellow plate on the front is a very effective air-dam!

[simon drabble]

I hope that the flying start of Joe's was not like the earlier one as I gather from Autosport the first start he got a drive through for jumping the gun......

Interestingly I seem to read this happening more and more and was put down to the reason for a recent historic start pile up. Sorry to single Joe out as he is a good racer and I wish him a speedy recovery but I am glad that the start line marshalls are beginning to act on this. The Snett 3 Hour last year was a joke - I was about the only person to stay in position until I passed the starter and had to waste the opening laps retaking slower cars