EIGHTIES SINGLE-SEATERS TO CONTEST NEW GEOFF LEES TROPHY
Historic Sports Car Club to gather eclectic field for new 2020 series
Single-seater racing cars of the 1980s will have a fresh chance to race next season in a new Historic Sports Car Club race category titled the Geoff Lees Trophy.
The series will be capped at two-litres and will be open to Formula 2, Formula Atlantic, Formula 3, Formula Ford
2000, Formula Vauxhall Lotus, Formula Renault and Formula
Super Vee cars raced during the 1980s.
The club’s successful
Historic Formula 2 class has a cut-off at the end of 1978, so the Geoff Lees Trophy will appeal to owners of two-litre F2 cars from 1979 to the end of the category in 1984. Pilot races are planned for the second half of 2020 before a fuller programme in 2021.
Lees has given enthusiastic backing for the series. He made his name in Formula Ford in the mid-1970s and rose through F3 and F2 to race in Formula 1. He won the 1981 European Formula 2 Championship, went on to race extensively in Japan and competed at Le Mans 14 times.
Cars must be in original specification with only the addition of current safety requirements. The Geoff Lees Trophy will sit alongside the HSCC’S current portfolio of categories, most of which cater for cars up to the start of the 1980s.
The cut-off dates for all of the existing categories remain unchanged.
Andy Dee-crowne of the HSCC said: “The HSCC is now the go-to club for period singleseater racing and so this new series is a logical development to accommodate a group of cars that don’t currently have many chances to race.”