Up to 1000cc Crystal Palace Saloon Car Race 03/10/70

[mab01UK]

Saloon Car race newly uploaded to YouTube below, from the 1970's at London's Crystal Palace circuit.....

Crystal Palace saloon car race 03/10/70
The up to 1000cc Saloon car race from Crystal Palace (10 laps) as shown on BBC Grandstand. Commentary by Murray Walker.
Pole - 196- Roger Wiliamson - Ford Anglia - Holbay F3 Engine
197 - Les Nash - Ford Anglia
201 - Simon Ridge - Automex Mini 992cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eDmnIt-_7U


Roger Williamson (Anglia) leading Simon Ridge (Automex Mini)

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by mab01UK

Saloon Car race newly uploaded to YouTube below, from the 1970's at London's Crystal Palace circuit.....

Brilliant, I used to go there and Brands as they were the nearest circuits to me. I was racing Angleboxes on the Oval circuits at the time as it was "the" car to have

[Mike Bell]

Great battle for third! Thanks for sharing

[E.B]

Thanks for sharing that wonderful video. Brilliant stuff.

[mab01UK]

Roger Williamson (Anglia) leads Simon Ridge (Mini) - Crystal Palace 3/10/1970

[mab01UK]

Simon Ridge's memories below of the 1970 Crystal Palace race which unfortunately he did not finish.....

Crystal Palace saloon car race 03/10/70
The up to 1000cc Saloon car race from Crystal Palace (10 laps) as shown on BBC Grandstand. Commentary by Murray Walker.
Pole - 196- Roger Wiliamson - Ford Anglia - Holbay F3 Engine
197 - Les Nash - Ford Anglia
201 - Simon Ridge - Automex Mini 992cc

"I was 0.02 off Roger’s time, Nash at 0.01, and faster than MacDonald by 1 second, who was sitting right behind me in fourth.
Both Anglia’s alongside me had Holbay F3 engines, whilst MacDonald had the ex, Graham Hill F2 engine, sleeved down to 1000cc !!
I was fastest through the Glade, and loved chucking the car from side to side. However in the race, on the first lap, Roger got ahead, and was slower than me through there.
This bunched up the other two. All three out braked me into the Glade, as I had the Mini Cooper S 7.5" discs, with all three Anglia’s on Cortina discs the size of Dinner plates.
Anyway, I remember heading for the trees “Airborne”, but don’t remember the impact, just the problem of getting out of the car which had folded in half.
The front of the roof was touching my nose, top of steering wheel folded horizontal towards me, car hard against the trees on the right, and passenger door missing.
This left a small triangle of space to crawl through, once I had got onto the floor, and wriggled to the left under the dash, and in front of the gear lever.
I suppose I could say, the rest is history !!!!!"
Simon

Press cutting photo below of Simon Ridge's Mini before and after....a lucky escape!!!

[VIVA GT]

Wow, he was lucky to get out of that (relatively) un-scathed! Interesting too to read the description of the Anglia Cortina brake discs being like dinner plates, by comparison I suppose those used today are the size of serving platters!

[Broadclystboy]

My definitive history of Crystal Palace racing by Richard Page states 'Simon Ridge ran third in the best of the Minis but tangled at New Link with John MacDonald's Anglia'.

I suppose this is technically correct!