RAC Saloon 1980's photos

[Nordic]

http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/c192832.html

I have these photos posted on my site. All from the RAC saloon car series in the early 80's.

I would like if possible to caption them correctly. Some are more obvious than others.

Any help would be gratefully recieved.

[chunterer]

Indeed,

I see a 1985/86 Rouse Sierra XR4Ti has slipped in amongst the Grp 1 Capris and Rovers as well?!!

Not sure how easy or difficult it would be to do this but it look as though some of them are from 1981 and 82?

The white Rovers would've been 1980 or 1981 and the blue ones 1982.

Looks like they're mainly Brands and Silverstone shots?

The Juicy Jeans car in several shots was one of a 2 car Rouse/Broadspeed run team in 1981 with Andy and Charles Sawyer-Hoare as drivers. I think they only ran like that for the one season, not all that succesfully.

Entry lists from programmes for those seasons would be very useful as well.

If I can help any more can I have a few prints as a pressie???

[kurtiejjj]

Those red capris are from gordon spice racing are they not?

[Nordic]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Indeed,

I see a 1985/86 Rouse Sierra XR4Ti has slipped in amongst the Grp 1 Capris and Rovers as well?!!

Not sure how easy or difficult it would be to do this but it look as though some of them are from 1981 and 82?

The white Rovers would've been 1980 or 1981 and the blue ones 1982.

Looks like they're mainly Brands and Silverstone shots?

The Juicy Jeans car in several shots was one of a 2 car Rouse/Broadspeed run team in 1981 with Andy and Charles Sawyer-Hoare as drivers. I think they only ran like that for the one season, not all that succesfully.

Entry lists from programmes for those seasons would be very useful as well.

If I can help any more can I have a few prints as a pressie???

Most were taken at brands, I am thinking most would have been the GP support rounds.

The Red Capri's are the easier to id as Spice and co, but the Juicy jeans ones had me stumped. I never associted Rouse with them, it was always spice or woodman in my mind!

I can email the images you fancy if we can get some names to cars.

Any thoughts on the RX7 driver? Win Percy springs to mind.

[chunterer]

Ok i'll pm you with an email and see what I can do.

Mazda pedallers in 1981 were Win (he won the title) John Morrison and I think even Pierre Dieudonne was out at certain rounds.

Certainly looks as though there's more than one RX7 in the shots, one with Motul on it and another without.

The cars are white and blue though when I always thought they were black, white and red in Pentax livery for the 3 seasons they competed. Interesting!

[Chris Griffin]

Daily Express Rovers would be Brian "Yogi" Muir and Rex Greenslade. Both Dave Price Racing prepared - pre TWR

Black Alfa Sud definately Jon Dooley. The other I'm not sure about.

[Chris Griffin]

Audi at the tail of the Silverstone Coppice shot is either Striling Moss or Martin Brundle. I have various programmes from Trimoco rounds from 82 onwards when I first started marshalling. I could take a look.

[MG Rover Sport]

Apologies for posting this image again here 'Nordic' without asking your permission, but it seemed to be the easiest way to attempt to identify the location.

To me this looks like the tunnel from the paddock to the infield at Donington Park - or am I mistaken?..

[MG Rover Sport]

Apologies again...



This is the drop down from Druids Bend to Graham Hill Bend at Brands Hatch - as you all know. However I reckon this is during 1980 (possibly 25 August?), as the red / white / black Toyota Celica is Nº 46, and in that season there was a Toyota Celica entered at Nº 46 for Chris Hodgetts under the Hughes of Beaconsfield (Team Toyota) banner. His team mate was Martin Brundle at Nº 45.

The white car on the far right of the image - Nº 57 - is the Mitsubishi Colt Lancer GSR of David Morgan, entered under the Colt Car Company banner with his team mate, Barry 'Whizzo' Williams at Nº 56.

[MG Rover Sport]

Apologies again...



The photo above shows the Nº 6 entry of Rex Greenslade, entered under the Team Triplex with Esso and Motor banner. Again this is during 1980 at Brands Hatch.



The above photo shows the Nº 9 entry of Jeff Allam, entered under the Daily Express / Equipe Esso banner. This was taken during the 1981 season, and looks like the main straight at Silverstone.

The photo below looks like it was taken at the same meeting, and features the Nº 4 entry of Jonathan Buncombe, entered under the Equipe Esso banner.

[MG Rover Sport]

Apologies again...



The image above was again taken at Brands Hatch during the 1981 season. The cars featured are the Nº 40 Toyota Celica of Chris Hodgetts (Toyota GB Limited), the Nº 5 Ford Capri of Charles Sawyer-Hoare (CSH Racing with Esso and Daily Mirror), and one of the Audi 80s of either Martin Brundle Nº 42 or Stirling Moss Nº 43 (Team BP Audi) - see below for an image of the latter entry in the paddock...



The paddock scenes below were taken during the 1981 season, posibly at Thruxton as each image is captioned. Having said that, the bridge in the background of the second image looks a lot like Silverstone?

This first image shows the red Nº 47 VW Golf GT1 of Alan Minshaw (Demon Tweeks 4 Koni Shocks), the Nº 1 Ford Capri of reigning champion Gordon Spice (Gordon Spice Racing), the Nº 56 Mitsubishi / Colt Lancer of Barry 'Whizzo' Williams (The Colt Car Cº) and one of the Equipe Esso Ford Capris.



The second image (below) shows the Nº 11 Ford Capri of Graham Goode (Bestmoor Computers) flanked by one of the Equipe Esso Ford Capris, and one of the Patrick Motorsport Rover 3500s.

[Alan Raine]

Originally Posted by MG Rover Sport

To me this looks like the tunnel from the paddock to the infield at Donington Park - or am I mistaken?..

Looks like the tunnel at Brands to me. Rex Greenslade again but possibly going to practice out of session. Hence the 'T' after the number.

[MG Rover Sport]

Looking at the photo again Alan, and yes you're right - it's Brands. Apologies to all concerned for the incorrect information earlier.

I didn't realise what the 'T' meant though.

[Chris Griffin]

Originally Posted by MG Rover Sport

...
Having said that, the bridge in the background of the second image looks a lot like Silverstone?

Excellent work MG! I hope to contribute more later. This image though appears to be taken at Silverstone with the cars in the Grand Prix Circuit "assembly area" or end of the Club straight. Despite the concrete runway evident under Capri No11 the white line under the next car could be the left side of Club straight tarmac.

[Chris Griffin]

These are excellent shots Nordic, very evocative, and despite the quality of some of them bring back great memories. Do you have any others you have not posted?

[MG Rover Sport]

No problems Chris - I quite enjoyed it all really!

I've singled out a few more which I'll be able to add some detail to later, but I just ran out of time last night. Amazing what you can unearth in a few 27 year old race programmes!

I'm glad you agree with my thoughts that the image above looks like Silverstone. I see what you mean about the tarmac now - did you recognise the bridge in the background?

[Nordic]

Thanks for all the help so far. I have changed some of the captions to reflect the information so far given, and I will change the rest when i have a chance.

The paddock shot of the Capri is interesting as i have aways thought it was taken at Thruxton, but the your right the bridge in the background would rule it out and i am sure it must be Silverstone, taken, I guess at the GP support that year or maybe the 1000k's if the Saloons appeared there. I would only have been to Silverstone 3 times that year the other being the TT, and would have camped on site for both the GP and the 1000ks hence the paddock access.

[Chris Griffin]

Originally Posted by MG Rover Sport

- did you recognise the bridge in the background?

Yes. The bridge with loose sleepers on it that rattled and rumbled when you drove over it! Also the buildings to the left constitute the "Farm" where all the circuit vehicles were kept.

[MG Rover Sport]

I can hear the sound now Chris!

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by MG Rover Sport

No problems Chris - I quite enjoyed it all really!

I've singled out a few more which I'll be able to add some detail to later, but I just ran out of time last night. Amazing what you can unearth in a few 27 year old race programmes!

Yes you have done well and saved me most of a job I reckon!!

The entries in the early 80's were big and diverse, much better than the shopping car races nowadays. I haven't found my programmes, but I realised I lent them to someone a couple of years back and haven't seen them since!!

Few more notes of interest. As there's more than one Spice Capri in the shots in 1981, then it will probably have been pedalled by Phil Martin Dye who replaced Rouse who as has been mentioned set up his own team for that season running cars independent of CC Racing.

That 'Bestmoor' Capri was bugging me so well done on identifying the driver of that one!!

By my reckoning the White Rovers were pedalled by Greenslade and Jeff Allam with the Patrick Motors (anyone have both of these in their Scalextric set at the time??) driven either by Yogi Muir or Rad Dougall.

Is there also a few Fiestas and Metros in the shots as well?

[MG Rover Sport]

Thanks 'chunterer'.

Any 1980 or 1981 photos that feature Rover 3500s are fairly easy to identify due to their particular entries each season.

1980
Team Triplex with Esso and Motor
Nº 6 - Rex Greenslade
Nº 12 - Jeff Allam

1981
Patrick Motorsport with Motor / Duckhams
Nº 7 - Brian Muir
Nº 8 - Rex Greenslade

Daily Express / Equipe Esso
Nº 9 - Jeff Allam
Nº 10 - Peter Lovett

[chunterer]

Only if you can easily identify the numbers on the cars in the pics though?

[Chris Griffin]

For the record...according to a Motorsport interview with John Davenport (BL Motorsport) Frank Sytner also had a couple of outings alongside Allam in '81 at Sliverstone and Mallory. Couldn't get dialed into the car though so backed out.

[MG Rover Sport]

Good point 'chunterer'!

Chris - I have an un-used Sanyo Rover 3500 sticker in the 'collection', and I'm sure it features both Jeff Allam's and Frank Sytner's printed signatures below the image of the car. I suppose being Sanyo livery that make it 1982 though? I'll scan it in later & post it here.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Chris Griffin

For the record...according to a Motorsport interview with John Davenport (BL Motorsport) Frank Sytner also had a couple of outings alongside Allam in '81 at Sliverstone and Mallory. Couldn't get dialed into the car though so backed out.

Yeah I remember something about this. I think he actually did a few races in 1982 in a Sanyo car as well but was replaced by Lovett?

Can't remember why it was that both sides were so keen to try each other out. I'm sure Sytner mentioned something about a link between TWR and the BMW County series that he competed in in 1980? TWR prep'd the 320's I think and the intent began there. Might be bit off beam though?

Must have been so put out by it that he decided to enter a 635 to try and get back at them in later years!