DOWN THE PUB

He has a famous father “I was exposed to racing by my father Les, but I didn’t see much of it as I was born in 1957 and all his really successful stuff was before me. I’ve got photographs of me sitting on the original Lotus Elite DAD 10.”

He tried Formula Ford “I wanted to be World Champion like everyone else and I tried Formula Ford and raced Minis against guys like Steve Soper, Patrick Watts and Paul Taft and they were stunningly good. I was at school with Mark and Tom Walker and Charles Gillett. We all mucked around with old cars and Mark and Tom’s dad was in to the VSCC and that’s how it started.”

He owns a US special “I bought the car as a box of bits about 35 years ago. Its history is as a 1928/1930 sprint dirt racer in America. It has a 1926 Chrysler front axle, which was very popular. They didn’t even bother with brakes, but I’ve got brakes all round. They sometimes threw the clutch away so you’d bang it into gear and be push-started by a pickup truck. That’s why the tail end of every dirt racer is beaten.”

It has a Ford engine “When I was restoring it I fully intended to have a body built for it, but I ran out of money. It runs a Ford Model A engine, which is 3.3-litre and has about 150bhp. But it only weighs 560kg and I can pick the engine up. It would need three of us to pick up a period Bentley engine. Henry Ford was very clever at making strong internals for the gearbox and back axle, but still very light.”

He raced it for 30 years “The name is made up and I used to work in the oil industry and found a switch named Lovell Elkhart. I thought it was a great name for the car as it had no other identity. The chassis is original Ford but we don’t know what it was called in period. They tended to find the chassis in scrap yards and make the bodies. They were incredibly simple cars. I’ve been competing in it for 30 years on and off. Everyone says it looks a handful but in fast corners it is very well balanced. It’s a good hillclimb car as well, but only has a three-speed gearbox.”