Here's a nice simple one (except for me, apparently). I stumbled across this in our archive:



The scribble on the back says 'Wharton 1954'. It looks like a BRM V-16 Mk 2 in a Formula Libre race - and I think it's Goodwood. But my various rummagings on Tinternet can't find any reference to Wharton driving a #5 BRM at this circuit or any other that year - he's usually in car #4 or sometimes #1. So is the year wrong, or the driver, or am I just being dim (yes thank you, we know which is the most likely)?

Thanks for your help.

Other than pointing out that its a Mk 1 BRM V16 I can't be of much help. Certainly looks like Goodwood to me.

Looks like the 1954 Glover Trophy to me

Of course - serves me right for looking at two pics at once. Thanks.

Yes, thats from The Glover Trophy Race, Goodwood, Easter Monday 1954. Thats Roy Salvadori on the Gilby Maserati 250F right behind the BRM. The two cars eventually collided at the entrance to Lavant
Corner and Ken restarted to win the Mk1 V16's last race. The car was actually a write off!. It was a great race for the many BRM fans at the circuit that day.

Just about to write much the same.
There is a photo, credited to Motor, in Profile 96 taken in almost the same place but with the car a bit further on, so that the driver's head is exactly aligned with the middle of the gap in the Armco.

It makes you realise just how old one is getting when people post pictures from 1954 and don't know who, what or where, - when one just looks and says: Oh! That's Goodwood 1954, Glover Trophy, Wharton and Salvadori in the Gilby Maserati.
Eric and I were there further along the straight and saw the clash between the two drivers. It does not seem like 55 years ago. Take a look at he crowd behind, it puts the Revival in to perspective as regards numbers of spectators.

Thank you all - knew I could rely on TNF not only to supply the who/what/where/when but also the added colour. Much appreciated.

I'm ashamed not to have known the answers, especially as I was probably there too - but as someone yet to celebrate their 4th birthday at the time, I probably wasn't paying proper attention. I'll try harder in future, if I can catch it before the senile decay kicks in.

I gather from my readings that the clash with the Salvadori Maserati left the BRM with 'a badly bent chassis', though not sure how the Maserati fared. Also apparently the last race appearance of the Mk 1 V16 (well, for the next 50 years or so).

Thanks again.

Armco? ARMCO? That's Freddie March's famous cast concrete barrier, prototype for the Fred Francis plastic Scalextric barrier sections...

Photo shows Madgwick Corner. Wharton won after he and Salvadori had collided, the V16 BRM Mark I crossing the finish line with its chassis frame kinked amidships. It was judged as being beyond economical repair, and was consequently scrapped - so the race had been won by a write-off.

Roy's entrant Syd Greene protested Wharton for persistent baulking, and causing unnecessary contact. The Stewards managed to paper over the cracks. Roy was philosophical, reasoning that they would race again "next weekend, and then we'll see what may happen". Later, at Silverstone, Wharton's Vanwall spun off and ruptured its fuel tank against a marker board post entering Copse Corner, and Salvadori was alongside when the incident began. The world is round as a current South African cricketer has just observed...

DCN

Oh dear, can't resist adding that the original 1950s Scalextric reproduced wooden paling-type fencing, which fitted into slots on the outside of the curves (and snapped quite realistically after determined assaults by the weighty tinplate cars). It was only with the later Plexitrack that we got the more resilient crash barrier design, that clipped onto the rim of the track.

Gawd, I must be old after all.

Well I never went to Goodwood in its heyday, it being a long difficult drive from North Hertfordshire.
I just thought I recognised a local Letchworth product

A long and difficult drive?.You should have tried cycling from Hertfordshire as we did on many ocassions. 'My heart is at St Mary's, but my knees on Duncton Hill'!.

Here it is chaps, still in place by the assembly area.

Think I read somewhere that most of the Scalextric buildings (Control Tower, Grandstand, Timekeeper's Hut) were based on those at Goodwood. Certainly looked more 'Goodwoody' than, say, Silverstoney or Oultony.

They certainly were - in addition, of course, don't forget their Goodwood chicane.