Drama in St Mary’s as Stig Blomqvist wins
1963 Ford Galaxie 500 racers, Sam Tordoff and Stig Blomqvist, went head-to-head in Saturday’s 20-minute St Mary’s trophy race with just a thousandth of a second a lap difference between the two drivers.
They jostled for position while also attempting to hold off competition from the later-braking Lotus Cortinas. Drama unfolded with two laps to go when Sam’s Galaxie unleashed plumes of smoke and pulled off onto the grass allowing Stig to cruise home to victory. Sam said: ‘It was the most competitive St Mary’s race I’ve ever been involved in and it’s just a shame as I really think we could have beaten Stig today’. Sam added that he presumed the car had fallen prey to an engine oil leak and hoped it wasn’t terminal. He said of the Ford Galaxie: ‘ They look big and heavy but they’re surprisingly agile!’
After Stig took the chequered flag, he told Classic Car Weekly: ‘It was good fun and clean and fair racing, no-one was naughty! The Lotus Cortinas are quick in the corners so it was our goal to keep them behind us. But it was fantastic to drive – the Galaxie races like a rally car!’
Further down the field, Tiff Needell had fun racing against the mid-pack in a 1960 Jaguar 3.8 Mk2. Nigel Webb of the Trade-Air Ltd. team that works on the car said of Jaguar Mk2s: ‘We struggle against Minis and Lotus Cortinas in the modern eras as they have been able to advance more over the years. It’s possible to add an extra 1000rpm to some Lotus twin-cam engines. We can just about hold off the Minis in a straight line, but they can brake so much later given our Jag weighs a hefty 1450kg. Back in the day we’d be beating Minis but not today with these brakes – we’re constantly defending a position as we’re effectively mis-matched. In fairness Goodwood have said that we can use an E-type engine. Tiff raced well for the Trade-Air Ltd. team and said it was a really lovely car, just too heavy.’
In a one-off Jaguar handicapped race, a 1954 XK120 raced around the Goodwood circuit with a head start attempting to cross the finish line ahead of a modern electric iPace car and Formula E racer.
Model and celebrity, David Gandy brought his XK120 to do battle with the modern Jags, hoping to keep both behind him. He said: ‘I wondered where they were for a while; you can’t hear much over the engine noise! It was an incredible privilege to be here, though – it’s extremely fast and things can go wrong quite quickly if you’re not careful. I managed to get it up to 105mph on the back straight!’
David bought the XK120 last year, hoping to run the car in this year’s Mille Miglia. With the event being cancelled due to the pandemic, SpeedWeek proved a fantastic way to unleash some performance from the car. David added: ‘It was in a pretty awful condition when I bought the car from the west coast of America. It has since had a full nut and bolt restoration. The XK120’s sweeping lines really do make it look as though it’s moving when it’s not.’
David crossed the line neck-andneck with the modern Jaguars and thankfully none of them touched!