VSCC SPRINTS INTO BRANDS HATCH ACTION
Resourcefulness, adaptability and willingness to change are increasingly vital tools in today’s event organisers’ boxes. Bravo to the Vintage Sports-car Club therefore, which, faced with insufficient entries to fill the race programme in its 85th anniversary season, added a morning Sprint to its Brands Hatch debut.
The entertaining and closefought competition brought an extra dimension to the day, enabling drivers to learn the circuit and the Formula Vintage meeting to wash its face financially.
Fifty-nine subscribers enjoyed a practice and two timed runs over oneand-a-half laps of the Indy Circuit. Long-time Morgan Challenge racer Tony Lees – husband of progressive hands-to-the-pumps VSCC president Jenny – set best time of the day in the famous
COGNAC Special, the Gn-chassised, Ac-engined concoction which the late Freddie Giles piloted with enormous verve for donkeys’ years. The twitchy combo’s 97.37s shot overcame Patrick Blakeney-edwards’ Frazer Nash Super Sports by 1.04s.
Down the class PBE’S brother Simon and his wife Jo had a splendid duel in 1929 FN Super Sports. Simon led by almost a second after the first runs then improved, but Jo matched his time. Dutchman Hans van Wortel won the tightest class, a Riley-rich affair, improving from third in his monoposto 12/4 to oust speed event specialist Alexander Hewitson and Tim Kneller. Just 0.54s split the trio. Elsewhere, after a cautious start, Francesca Wilton boldly pulled out all the stops to beat sister Stephanie in their shared Cooper-bristol Mk2.
When racing started, after 1500hrs on a perfect summer afternoon, Fred Harper blasted his methanol burning Offenhauser-engined Kurtis Kraft 500G to victory in the fastest set, for Pre-’61 and Vintage racing cars. “It’s got twice the horsepower and twice the grip of anything else but I couldn’t slow down,” said Harper. “I didn’t trust Patrick not to creep up on me.” His Meguiar’s Mirror Glaze Special was raced by New Mexico-born Ray ‘The Flying Grocer’ Crawford to best finishes of fourth in the threelegged Race of Two Worlds which embroiled American and European teams at Monza in 1957 and ’58.
Six decades later, the heavyweight, in which Crawford also started two Indianapolis 500s, was also in a race of two worlds as Pat Blakeney-edwards pursued energetically in his spindly Nash, whirring chains kicking its tail out in the corners. He lapped in a minute flat, way ahead of Ginetta Junior graduate Oliver Llewellyn in dad Tim’s thunderous Bentley 3/8 who bested Julian Grimwade’s Alvis-engined FN Norris Special.
Eddie Williams dominated the toothsome Owner-driver-mechanic standard and modified pre-war sportscar field, showcasing 13 marques including a Kentish Invicta, driven by Trevor Swete. Driving Charles Gillett’s rapid Nash, Williams outran Christopher Mann’s stunning art deco-liveried Alfa Romeo Monza and the Riley TT Sprite of former VSCC president Kneller, who will hang up his helmet after Snetterton’s seasonal finale next month.
Oliver Sharp was set to lap the Triple-m Register field when his MG N Special wilted, adding to high attrition which started when Mike Painter’s Kayne Special was pushed from the grid with clutch failure and son Harry’s PA’S supercharger broke. Charles Goddard (PA/PB) was the beneficiary of these woes.
PBE added pre-war scratch honours to his haul, beating Grimwade and Julian Wilton, whose ex-arthur Dobson ERA R7B was minus top gear all day. Handicap gongs were earned by young James Edwards, first time out in the Frost family Morgan Super Aero, and superconsistent John Moss (Austin 7).