FLUXIE REUNITED!
VETERAN RACER BACK TO HIS ROOTS P25
I “was getting £40 a week in wages, 50 per cent of the prize money, I had a Renault 16 company car and they gave me a flat in a tower block in Bletchley,” remembers single-seater wannabe Ian Flux. “I was living the dream.”
The firm paying the wages was Ehrlich. The Austrian car constructor had hired Flux to drive in F3 in 1976 and he then remained with the marque through to Formula Atlantic in the early 1980s.
He drove the Ehrlich RP5B in 1982 – a car he was reunited with at Silverstone in November, rolling back nearly four decades of history. He tested on the National circuit and the old feelings came flooding back.
Flux raced the 1600cc Ford BDApowered RP5 throughout the 1981 season up against the dominant Ralt RT4 of Ray Mallock, and continued with the updated machine the next year. Flux finished fourth in the points in that 1981 season and went one better in 1982. It is a car he has fond memories of.
The chassis is now owned by prolific historic racer John HayesHarlow. He has had the project for a couple of seasons, and has recreated the car faithfully. “When John bought the car, he would phone me quite often to ask for help: he had a bunch of bits and needed to know where they went. I ended up trying to help him construct the car from the end of a phone line – it was quite tricky,” explains Flux. “However, it was done well and it certainly is a proper restoration. Whenever I spoke to John, I said I would love to have a go in it when it was finished. When he called and offered me a run in it, I was delighted.”
Dr Joseph Ehrlich was passionate about motorcycles and formed a successful working alliance with Mike Hailwood in the early 1960s, which included his self-built machine running right at the front of the 125cc class of the world motorbike championships. Ehrlich then moved into the world of karting before creating his first F3 car in 1969 and he remained loyal to that division – and to Formula Atlantic – through to the mid-1980s. He then returned to the world of motorcycles.
Flux explains: “The car was originally an F3 car that was converted to Formula Atlantic specification, because the landscape was changing in UK motorsport then and Atlantic was the way to go.”
Formula Atlantic was expected to boom in the early 1980s. The domestic Aurora F1 series had been mothballed for 1981, and that encouraged entrants into Formula Atlantic, but that galvanisation was short-lived and the category petered out in 1983.
In that time in the early 1980s, though, the series was strong, featuring stars such as Flux, Mallock and David Leslie, but the return of the British F1 championship in 1983 took organiser Motor Circuit Developments (the original owners of Brands Hatch) in a different direction. The series moved under the control of British Racing Drivers’ Club and the British Racing and Sports Car Club. It lasted only one more season before the axe fell.
“They were some fantastic times racing for the innovator Dr Ehrlich – I even remember being jailed when we raced in the Atlantic series in New Zealand in 1980,” recalls Flux. “I blame [current WSR boss] Dick Bennetts, who was running a car out there: he had ambushed me in the hotel and wrapped me in ice, so I decided to set the fire sprinkler system off briefly to get him back. However, once I had set it off, I couldn’t stop it and it flooded the hotel. I got banged up and taken to court. It was all over the TV news out there. I think I got a fine of a few grand.”
The drive in Hayes-harlow’s car was a treat for Flux, who has been a regular in the Super Touring series this year. “There were a few fuel pressure issues to cure, but when we sorted that, it was amazing,” says Flux. “The car always had a short wheelbase, so it was very easy to get the back a long way out of shape: sometimes too far! I certainly remembered that about it.
“But John’s car was well set-up, and whatever he has done with the damping on the car has worked wonderfully, because the handling was really good. I could push on. It really did come straight back to me. I loved it and I was flying around the National circuit with a huge grin on my face. I was really grateful for the opportunity.”
Not only was Hayes-harlow there to oversee the test, Flux was joined by Paul Crosby, who was the man responsible for bolting the car together with the driver all those years ago. “Paul was getting involved too, getting his hands dirty and offering pointers as we progressed through the test,” says Flux. “It was as much of a reunion for him as well as it was for me.
“When I did the test at Silverstone, I had my daughter Coral there to watch and my grandson George too. That was a really special thing for me – when I was racing that car originally, I wasn’t even married and the thought of kids was a long way away.”
The decades might have passed, but the meaning of Flux’s reunification with the Ehrlich was not lost on the man himself. The next task will be to find a TVR Tuscan Challenge car to help the 1996 champion commemorate the first round of that one-make series in 1989. There are more chapters to be written. ■