Story and Photos by Graham Gauld
It has been a few years since I have been at the VSCC (Vintage Sports Car Club) spring meeting at Silverstone.
The event opens the historic racing season in Britain partly because they made it into a one-day event. Now they have gone back to making it a two-day event, and what is more, this year marks the 80th anniversary of the Club. So I felt I had to go.
Also it is the 80th anniversary of the ERA, that icon of English racing cars which will also be celebrated at Donington later in the year.
Talking of ERAs, there were no fewer than ten of them racing at Silverstone, which made a grand sight and the winner of the Patrick Lindsay Trophy for ERA cars was UK journalist but now U.S. resident Mark Gillies driving the third ERA ever built, R3A, and the first 2 liter car. It was surprisingly entered for the 1935 German Grand Prix for the German driver Ernst von Delius. He had just become a factory driver for Auto Union, but with four other Auto Unions in the race he was released to drive for Raymond Mays’ ERA team. But he had a huge accident in practice placing the ERA in the trees and out of the race. Raymond Mays, meanwhile, entered and ran a new 2 liter car, R4B but he retired in the race.
Today the car is owned by Dick Skipworth who had previously owned the car before selling it to American Ron Smith. He recently bought it back from Smith’s widow Mary. The Hon. Patrick Lindsay’s son Ludovic was there to see his father’s old car “Remus” ( R5B) that had been raced by Siamese Prince Bira and is now owned by Charles McCabe. I cannot think of another marque that could command an exclusive race with ten race cars, each about 80 years old.
In one of the garages I came across an interesting early Lola, the ninth of eleven Mark 3 Formula Juniors. Owned and raced today by Barry Cannell, it carries chassis number BRJ-38 and was unique in that its original owner was Hugh Dibley, best known as a BOAC pilot back in the 1960s. In 1961 the new Grand Prix formula was for 1.5 liter cars. Towards the end of the 1960 season Hugh contacted the Ford engine tuners, Holbay, to build a longer-stroke version of the Ford Junior engine to raise it from 1,000 to 1500 ccs. Instant F1 car! It was finished in time for the Lewis-Evans Trophy race at Brands Hatch where Dibley put it on the second row of the grid. Mind you all the leading Formula 1 team cars were don their way to the USA for the US Grand Prix, so the opposition was not too great. In the race Dibley got up to fourth place before the wheel bearings wore out and he had to retire, but it was a great effort.
Dibley then sold the car to Dutch/Canadian Ernie de Vos who won the East Coast Formula Junior Championship in 1962 with it. The car returned in bits to the UK in the late 1970s and now Barry is racing it in its original Scuderia light blue colors. Barry is also Chairman of the HGPCA (Historic Grand Prix Cars Association).
Mention of Hugh Dibley reminds me of a story he told at a dinner I organized in Edinburgh, twenty one years ago on the 25th anniversary of Jim Clark’s death. Not long after Jim won the 1965 Indianapolis 500, he decided he wanted a new aeroplane to replace his ex-Jack Brabham single=engined Piper Comanche. He contacted Piper and ordered a new Twin-Comanche, complete with long range tanks so that he could fly the Atlantic with it. Sometime later Piper told him the plane would be ready to pick up at a certain date. When Jim bumped into Hugh at a race meeting, he suggested that Hugh should go over with him to Vero Beach in Florida, collect it and both fly it back together.
All seemed fine but then Hugh had some BOAC flying to do, and Jim had a race to attend to, so Clark asked Piper to get a pilot to fly the plane from Florida over to England.
It took off and totally disappeared and was never heard of again. Now if Jim and Hugh had been flying it at the time, would have made a helluva front page story at the time!
I think it is wonderful when well-known racing cars of the past are lovingly restored but I cannot help thinking that sometimes the restoration is a bit too loving. Resplendent in white with blue flashes, was a car that I knew from the past, the John Coombs’ Cooper Monaco. I remember when John brought it to Silverstone for what was probably its first race. His driver on that occasion (and on most), was Roy Salvadori, but the car was not running well and even John Coombs despaired. However, eventually, Salvadori had many successes with the car. Coombs took the brave move to fit a 2.5 liter Maserati engine to it rather than the regular Coventry Climax as the Maserati engine had a slight edge. It was great to see it out again.
pete says
Graham’s shot of Ernie de Vos in a Lola FJ is actually Smokey Drolet in one of Frank Harrison’s Lolas at Courtland, Alabama, in 1962.
Willem Oosthoek
pete says
Willem and readers.When Barry send me the photograph of the Elva he was obviously under the impression it was his car. I have already advised him it is not so. Thanks for the correction. It is important that we get things right,
Graham Gauld
Frank Allocca says
Willem, As an aside, last fall I spoke with Smokey..she is living in Fla.. I was researching the brief racing history of my Frazer Nash Le Mans Coupe that she raced when owned by Frank Harrison.. she was able to add some color to the cars early history.. Best, Frank Allocca
nedra ware says
please note; smokey took her own life last week in ocala fla to be with her recently
deceased husband>walt sizemore midget racer>burn rubber uo there to the sky
nedra ware