MAGICAL MEMORIES

As Thruxton celebrates 50 years and achieving a prestigious second BTCC visit next season, here’s a very personal take on the circuit’s history

“DOING THE PA FROM EITHER THE AIRFIELD CONTROL TOWER OR AT THE COMPLEX IS A JOY”

The privilege and pleasure of reporting and commentating at Thruxton’s 50th Anniversary Celebration earlier this month brought the British Automobile Racing Club home circuit’s heritage and extensive contribution to my career into focus, and made the last day of my sixth decade unexpectedly special.

Although we lived in Hampshire, I missed the first five seasons alas. My intro came through racing rookie neighbours, on

October 28 1973, BARC Championship Finals day. Apart from Tony Hazlewood’s 100mph saloon lap record in the DAF V8, other memories thankfully remain vivid. Local ace Ian Taylor, already Forward Trust F3 champion, finished third in the Baty March 733. Another car I loved was Tony Birchenhough’s Dorset Racing Lola T290 HU22, driven in the Motoring News/castrol GT race by‘lee Kaye’, who I discovered years later was Leopold Kasprowicz. On a very sad note, Cheshire veteran Brian Hough lost his life in the Modsports race when he crashed his TVR Tuscan at Kimpton Bend (now Noble).

Now open to the possibilities, I went a few times in 1974 with my dad, including to the May F5000 race won by Ian Ashley (Lola T330) and in which young Rene Arnoux drove Tony Kitchiner’s Mclaren M19A. Excitingly, I first saw John Turner’s spectacular F5000 Leda-based Skoda-chevrolet Super Saloon here.

Becoming a BARC junior race assistant/paddock runner brought me closer. Decades before transponders arrived, Mike Eyre’s team timed several drivers each, to a tenth, using banks of manual stopwatches. Wendy Dodimead, Sue Duddridge and the late Del Ali typed their results after each session, printing sheets on a hand-turned Banda spirit duplicator. Having ascertained that I could lap chart, Wendy sent me to assist the commentator, Autosport’s Simon Taylor, in a wooden shed wobbling on scaffolding stilts at the chicane. A portentous occasion.

Through chief startline marshal Bob Lentell I switched to grid and pitlane duties during 1975-76. Bob lived near me and marshalled most weekends, thus I gratefully accepted lifts from Basingstoke to Brands Hatch, Silverstone, Mallory Park and Snetterton. I met countless racers along the way, from the club racing classes I adored to frontline internationals including Thruxton’s Easter Monday F2 bonanzas.

Having knowledge gleaned from voracious reading of the weeklies (often to the detriment of school lessons) bolstered by experience at meetings, I was ready for work. When, after a year on a fringe car magazine, a post came up on Autosport, I applied immediately. Editor Quentin Spurring was reassured by Simon Taylor, and happily the job was mine. Starting directly from the British GP at Silverstone in July 1977, I remained on the full-time staff for 20 years and 1000 issues.

Although restricted to 12 event days per year, Thruxton will always be special for me as the catalyst for more than four decades of work. I enjoyed my first race there in 1981, driving Clive Wood’s Pine City Racing FF1600 Van Diemen RF79, and competed subsequently in a Royale RP26, a Renault 5 GT Turbo, an ex-tim Brise GRD 372, a Ginetta G20, a TOJ SS02, a Chevron B26, an Frenault Swift and a BOSS Formula LOLA-DFZ T90/50.

I’ve instructed there on countless occasions, initially on BMW days with dear Ian Taylor and his eponymous resident racing drivers’school. Subsequently I enjoyed the camaraderie of ex-f1 racers Mike Wilds and Tiff Needell and characters like Ian Flux and Scott Stringfellow over thousands of laps on Mercedes-benz tours masterminded by ex-f3 racer Gray Hedley, whose son James, 14, is excelling in the Ginetta Junior championship.

On a glorious day, however, doing the PA from either box, in the airfield control tower at the chicane or at the complex, binoculars in hand, is a joy. Particularly when the racing is as good as it was at the Golden Jubilee beano. With a magnificent view around most of the hallowed 2.356 miles, epic FF1600 and Mini slipstreamers, and great catchweight contests such as the RAC Woodcote/ Stirling Moss Trophy ’50s sportscars entertaining appreciative spectators, it’s as good as it gets.

My old pals Bill Coombs – to whom I lent my ex-thierry Tassin Argo JM6 for an early Classic F3 race at Mallory Park in 1986, and later became champion in the ex-david Sears sister car I’d fielded in ’87 – and Pat Blakeney put their heart and soul into making the event happen, with the small Thruxton team. I’m thrilled that its success has sown the seeds of future summer celebrations.

Having taken the racing school over when mentor Ian Taylor died at Spa in 1991, and developed every aspect of the venue’s offering and become Group MD, Bill fittingly demonstrated Ian’s F3 March 733 (now owned by Andy Langridge) at the anniversary meeting. When I arrived at Thruxton, aged 15, I’d never have dreamed that 45 years on I’d see it on track again. Or own a beautiful Merlyn Mk20, sharing the elation of Ben Mitchell repeating first owner Rob Cooper’s July ’72 double there. Especially from the best seat in the house. Fantastic!