DOWN THE PUB
Lotus racer Age: not given! Lives: Cambridge
He started on two wheels “I started racing motorbikes in Asia and then raced bikes in Australia while I was working overseas. I did some marathon rallying in Australia and did the London-sydney in 2000. Then I did some racing in Asia before moving back to the UK and I’ve been racing since then.”
He’s a Lotus man “I’ve raced on and off for about 15 years and always as an amateur. This year I’ve mainly been racing the Formula Junior Lotus 27 and the Lotus 23B in the Guards Trophy. Other years I’ve raced with the HGPCA in a Lotus 25. I’m a big Lotus enthusiast. Colin Chapman was a great innovator and Jim Clark is my hero, so I race Lotuses pretty much.”
The 27 has a good history “The Formula Junior is the Ecurie Ford France car that Jo Schlesser raced in period and Jean Vinatier raced it as well. It is a lovely car to drive and it is still very original. Classic Team Lotus restored it for me many years ago now and we made a big effort to get things period correct.”
He has an ex-clark car “A Lotus 27 won the Formula Junior championship in 1963 with Peter Arundel but they are quite hard to set up and it has taken us a lot of time to get to grips with it. But it is running well now, though we could always do a bit better. The Lotus 25 is a Jim Clark car and Classic Team Lotus is the natural team to use to run the car. It fits well there.”
There is also a sports-racer “I’ve had the Lotus 23B sports-racing car for a long time but we’ve only really started campaigning it this year. That’s an important car as it won the Autosport championship in 1965 with Robin Widdows with a onelitre BRM Formula 2 engine. Now I run it with a Lotus twin-cam, as a lot were in period. I’ve still got the original engine, but there is nowhere to race it. It was raced in the 1970s by David Dawson and won the Classic Sports Car Championship in 1977, so it has a long history. It’s nice to have a two-driver race in the Guards Trophy and I’ve been sharing it with Jon Milicevic this season.”