Classic American

THRUXTON THRILLER

Classic Sports Car Club Meeting

- Words and photograph­y: Steve Havelock

July 25-26, 2020

What a very strange world we are living in right now. Most motoring events have been cancelled for the year, but the Classic Sports Car Club bravely decided to push ahead with its two-day race meeting at Thruxton in Hampshire. The event was actually oversubscr­ibed, clearly showing that the race drivers want to get back on track, but the grandstand­s and spectator banks were eerily empty. The only way the meeting could go ahead was without members of the public. What was even stranger was that in the race assembly area and the pit lane, everyone, including the marshals, had to wear face masks. Not so in the general paddock area, although social distancing rules applied. This is where it all becomes a bit tricky. When you’ve got mechanics crawling all over the cars it’s rather difficult, maybe virtually impossible, to stay two metres apart. Or is it one metre? Well, whatever it is this week. Let’s just hope that the virus doesn’t like the smell of race fuel and burning rubber.

The 13-race programme catered mainly for more modern cars on the wet Saturday and for mostly historics on the sunny Sunday when I went along. They say the sun shines on the righteous. A walk around the paddock quickly revealed some American cars that I hadn’t seen before. At this same meeting last year I met Marcus Bicknell with his splendid red and yellow Joey Logano tribute Ford Fusion ASCAR. This year he was joined by two other oval racers. First was Lee Maddox from Suffolk with his No. 95 Pontiac Grand Prix. Lee told me that he bought the ex-Rockingham ASCAR about three years ago. He said he used to crew there and always fancied having a go at racing himself. It’s taken him a while though as he said: “This is only my second race. The first was at Snetterton last October.” His car has a space frame chassis built by Chas Howe in the US and a composite body by Five Star Bodies in Wisconsin. It’s fitted with a fairly stock 5.7-litre V8 as used in the Corvette C4.

Next door to him was Hollywood heart-throb Tom Cruise, aka Cole Trickle in his No. 46 Chevy NASCAR from the 1990 film Days of Thunder. Sorry, no it’s not. It’s Stuart Entwistle from Cheshire in a replica. He said: “It’s an ex-NASCAR. It was brought over from the US and was at Rockingham for a while. Since I bought it 12 months ago I’ve sorted out the engine, suspension and brakes. It was set up to turn left and so the suspension was different from one side to the other. It’s a bit of a lump. It’s not that fast as it’s only got a stock small-block engine with 350bhp. But it’s fast enough for me at the moment. You see, this is my very first race in 51 years. When I was young I used to race a Mini Cooper

S until I wrote it off at Oulton Park. My father said ‘I think you’d better find something else to do. This is too expensive.’ It’s taken me 51 years to save up enough money to do it again. I am 71 now. I’ve been on a couple of track days, but this is my first race. I know I’m not going to be competitiv­e at my age, but you never know. I just want to open it up a bit and have a bit of fun. I’ve never raced here before. It’s pretty featureles­s. I don’t know where the apexes are, or the turn-in points and braking points are. I need to learn the circuit.”

A bit further on I spied a canary yellow 1965 Chevelle Malibu belonging to Mark Ethelston from Shropshire who spoke with an American accent. ❯❯

He said: “I was born over here, but raised in Seattle and then came back about 25 years ago. Nearly 30 years ago my 15-yearson wanted one of these and we found this one. I paid $400 for it. It had a big smash in the front end, it had a bench seat, an old smoky V8, a two-speed Powerglide, a beat-up rear end, no interior to speak of and it was all pretty much wrecked. But it had a good frame, good sills and we thought it was worth having. We did it up together, one of those ‘father and son’ projects. He even went to a body repair class. We put a straight-six in it at first from a ’76 Malibu. Then he begged for a V8, so we put one of those in. He used to go to school in it and then drag raced it a bit. We then shipped it over here. He lost interest so I said I would turn it into a circuit car. I built the roll cage, the fuel cell and some other stuff, but it’s still fairly stock. The rebuilt engine has about 375 horsepower at the crank.” Then Mark said: “This is my first ever circuit race. And the first race for the car. I only just got my race licence.” What, another one?

During morning qualifying I wandered over to the pitlane and a lovely blue ’64 C2 Corvette that I hadn’t seen before had just pulled in, badly dripping oil. It was to be an early bath for experience­d racer Chas Mallard from Aylesbury. He was clearly disappoint­ed and said: “This is an FIA ’65 spec car with a 396cu in big block. I bought it two years ago. It came from Belgium. It was built by a bunch of monkeys. Absolutely useless. So bit by bit I’m putting right what they did wrong, which is absolutely everything. I also race a ’67 Camaro so I may just use that until I get this one fully sorted.”

Neil Merry also failed to make the race start when he dropped a valve and mangled a piston in the 454cu in big-block engine of his Budd replica Corvette C3 during qualifying. Shame, because up until then he was going well. In the races, Roddie Feilden’s Shelby American GT350 Mustang and Martin Reynolds’ Mach1 Mustang were both galloping on well while

Simeon Chodosh decided to retire his C1 Corvette when his race-weary tyres cried enough. Mark Ethelston thought he was going to overturn when his Malibu’s anti-roll bar broke on a fast corner and the handling turned to jelly. Marcus Bicknell’s ASCAR and Matt Snowball’s handsome Dan Gurney replica ’70 Plymouth ’Cuda won a race each in ‘Bernie’s V8s’ while Ray Barrow in his ’69 Camaro won the Swinging Sixties race.

All good fun. Just a pity there was no one there to see it. Strange times indeed. ★

 ??  ?? Stuart Entwistle.
Stuart Entwistle.
 ??  ?? Lee Maddox’s Pontiac Grand Prix ASCAR.
Lee Maddox’s Pontiac Grand Prix ASCAR.
 ??  ?? Marcus Bicknell’s ASCAR Mustang.
Marcus Bicknell’s ASCAR Mustang.
 ??  ?? Chas Mallard and Corvette C2.
Chas Mallard and Corvette C2.
 ??  ?? Mark Ethelston’s Malibu.
Mark Ethelston’s Malibu.
 ??  ?? Mark Ethelston and Malibu racer.
Mark Ethelston and Malibu racer.
 ??  ?? Neil Merry’s Corvette in masked assembly area.
Neil Merry’s Corvette in masked assembly area.
 ??  ?? Roddie Feilden’s Shelby Mustang.
Roddie Feilden’s Shelby Mustang.
 ??  ?? Entwistle and Snowball duke it out.
Entwistle and Snowball duke it out.
 ??  ?? Matt Snowball in his ’Cuda.
Matt Snowball in his ’Cuda.
 ??  ?? Simeon Chodosh’s Corvette C1.
Simeon Chodosh’s Corvette C1.
 ??  ?? Ray Barrow’s Camaro.
Ray Barrow’s Camaro.
 ??  ?? Martin Reynolds’ Mustang.
Martin Reynolds’ Mustang.
 ??  ?? Simeon Chodosh with his Corvette C1.
Simeon Chodosh with his Corvette C1.

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