SEAMAN TROPHY STILL GOING STRONG AT 70
The Vintage Sports-car Club gave the Historic Seaman Trophy a very special 70th anniversary at Donington Park. Twenty-two cars participated in the trophy’s race, more than double last year’s turnout, and 19 of them were pre-1941 machines eligible for the prize. And, most appropriately, a sizable number of ERAS were gathered, and six raced.
“If you were a kid and you dreamed about the sort of classic-looking, classic-sounding, pre-war racing car, they’d be something like this,” explained ERA enthusiast Paddins Dowling of the storied manufacturer.
“They also appeal because it was England’s effort to attack the might of Maserati and Alfa Romeo in the ’30s and they’ve done a great job on a very limited budget at the time and they’ve raced continuously since then, so there must be something good about them. They’ve got a simplicity about them. They are super cars to drive.”
Dowling provided one example,
R10B, at Donington and drove another, R5B – known as ‘Remus’ – made famous by Prince Bira and which won at the Monaco Historic last year.
And an ERA took the trophy, Mark Gillies finishing second overall in R3A, after starting from pole, falling behind only Fred Harper’s powerful and striking 1957 Kurtis Indy-roadster at the start.
Gillies observed it was particularly fitting that an ERA claimed the prize. “It’s known as the Lindsay-morris Trophy,” Gillies said of the historic trophy he’d just taken. “It’s been won so many times with [ERA] R11B by either David [Morris] or his dad [Martin], and Remus with either Ludo [Lindsay] or his dad [Patrick Lindsay].
“It’s nice to win the Morris-lindsay Trophy occasionally!”
Gillies’ triumphant R3A also has significant history. “It was the third car built, a works car in ’34 and ’35, [the] first ERA to win an overseas race which was Eifelrennen in 1935,” he explained. “[It] broke the 40-second barrier at Shelsley Walsh, and was one of only three of the cars that ran with the two-litre pre-war, and then in ’37 Charlie Martin ran it and he ended up winning the Avusrennen Voiturette race in front of the Germans.
“It’s magic, you can just point it sideways and it takes it, the engine’s got great power, you can basically do anything with it.”
It was an eclectic grid too, with in addition to the ERAS and the roadster, a Cooper Type 41 and an Alvis Silver Eagle. Tony Lees won the Vintage Seaman Trophy in an AC/GN Cognac which he notes has been “thrashed mercilessly” for the last 90 years! “The VSCC at its best really,” Lees concluded.
Gillies later also won the Scratch Race for Pre-war Cars, and it was a good meeting for double winners. Alexander Hewitson won the second Scratch Race in his Riley 12/4 Special having earlier taken the car to victory in a Handicap for Pre-war Cars. Matthew Moore was another double winner, first inheriting HRDC Allstars victory in an Austin Healey Jamaican, after first Alex Thistlethwayte then Fred Shepherd hit problems in their Ford Mustangs. He then immediately hopped into an Austin 7 to win a Pre-war Cars’ Handicap!
Shepherd had some compensation by winning the HRDC Coys 100 race with Bill Shepherd as co-driver. Edward Williams won the Redgate Mug for Standard & Modified Pre-war Sports Cars race in a Frazer Nash.