There are people now-a-days who are painting their race cars in inappropriate livery - a Lotus 61 Formula Ford in the black & gold JPS colours.

As for Advertising wasn't it a size issue? i.e. if the advert was less than a certain size it was permitted without the advertiser's license.

This is in danger of taking us off thread, but the other irritating inappropriate livery trend is the ever-increasing use of Gulf pale blue and orange on 'historic' cars. It might look good on a GT40 or a 917 but it looks silly on (e.g.) a Ford Sierra.

To be strictly correct, it was an Advertising Permit that was required (post-1.1.68. when advertising first allowed in UK). This was eventually incorporated into the cost of the entrants/drivers licence.
They were stickers for the dash and "autodestructible" if removal was attempted, to fit to another car. (Better not mention how to remove them as the same might apply to helmet stickers and that is not fair game in the same way at all).
After 1.1.68. up to 8(?) pairs of adverts of a max 55 square inches each were permitted UK licence holders without an advertising permit. Before that, only the entrant's name.

The two Lotus Cortinas are correctly hued...


...but on closer inspection the XJ6 appears to be turned out in British Racing Banoffee.


I always feel drivers of jurassic saloon cars should be forgiven, however...


...because they are rarely less than delightful to watch. A Gulf- or JPS-liveried Borgward Isabella would still be wrong, though.

EDIT: Thanks to the miracle of Alan Cox's 1983 programme collection, I can now reveal that the Lotus Cortina drivers were Phil Buck (#46) and David Hunter (#47). The banoffee XJ6 belonged to Ian Murray, Peter Deffee is in the Morris Minor, Robert Trevor in the A35 and Chris Logue in the mildly wayward Wolseley 15/50. Shots were taken at Oulton on April 23 1983...

Even more totally OT, but it was covered by another, even better, band too...

That was the version I was thinking of.

Not sure if anyone is interested, but I've posted the photos I have from my Alfa Romeo racing in the early 90s? Don't all rush at once!

http://s271.photobucket.com/albums/jj127/d...1/ALFA%20GTV6R/

Browse to the year.

Here's an example - Not great, but at least it was me, and all mine, for what it's worth!



Many more of my photos, referenced on the 'Paddock' and 'Track' threads, can also be found there.

Rich

One of my first heroes in British motor sport. After my arrival in 1980 i started watching this guy a lot. We shared the same last name, so naturally i payed closer attention. Fast & smooth, he won a lot of the races i saw him drive in.
Picture taken at Snetterton... .Spring Bank Holiday....???..1981
I know his son posts on this forum sometimes.

It is difficult to relate any of the following, all captured on a spring morning in 1978...


Renault 5s on a grassy knoll.


Sean Walker's Van Diemen RF78, plus admirers (and that looks a bit like Kenny Acheson chatting in the background).


Walter Robertson's Escort on axle stands, plus legendarily leaky branch of Chater & Scott in the background.

...with the following, captured today (aka a spring morning almost exactly 30 years later).


Oulton Park's paddock still has the same spirit, but its dimensions (and asphalt content) have altered radically during the past three decades.

Simon,
It was a pleasure to have our humble club meeting graced by your goodself yesterday. I'm sorry the grassy Paddock of "the good old days" has been replaced by nasty tarmac. Race Control and Commentary boxes now designed by the man who invented the baked bean tin don't have the feel of the old ricketty wooden structures, but the incumbents do maintain that ricketty image.

That is Kenny, talking to his mechanic, Roger Waters look-a-like, Paul Thompson. Paul went with Kenny through F3 and on to F1 with EJ. I was probably back with the RP24 when that was taken, polishing it for the millionth time!

Is it possible, then, that I photographed half a Kitson rooting around for a tin of Brasso in the back of the truck?

More like....trying to tune in Pink Floyd "Another Brick In The Wall" on the steam radio

Could be me, not sure. You're a year out Sterl, 'The Wall' did not come out until 1979, would have been 1977's 'Animals' album.

....puts anorak away...... feeling a tad "Sheep-ish"

To add to the recent spate of shots of Sports 2000..........

Ian Flux's Shrike proves that the photographer had the wrong lens on!!



The whole of Mike Taylor's Royale RP42 ( As stated on the car!)



Kind regards

Phil

Here's some mildly more recent Sports 2000 action (from Oulton Park, yesterday)...


Mark Higson leads Steve Head and Ian Doble during the Duratec race - one of the first pictures I've taken at Oulton Park since about 1983.


David Houghton spread oil across half of Cheshire during the second Sports 2000 race (of three), so much of the circuit was laced with cement dust when the LMA Everything Goes Championship kicked off. This is winner Nick Williamson. Simon Scuffham's Lotus Elise is in there somewhere...

Nice to see Mr Arron at Oulton yesterday, where there was a small, but select, gathering of Northern TNFers in the press centre (Ian Smith, AuroraF1, 'pressman' Steve Jones, SA and AC).

But, to get back on track - or, rather, to the paddock - from 1976 and a great season of Formula Ford:

Derek Warwick and John Bright

Mathew Argenti and Warwick - the drivers are protecting their carburettor intakes from flying gravel in the Oulton Park paddock


Trevor van Rooyen and, for no particular reason, the Dicksons of Perth F2 Modus team from the Shellsport Group 8 series

I am amazed at how this world throws up so many coincidences. I was at Oulton yesterday for a look see as I am building a car for the Sports 2000 pinto class. Even had tea and a biscuit in the FF caravan. In 1980 my sponsor, Lander Alarms, was bought by RMC. For the 1981 season RMC was approached to increase the funding but Kenny As dad had more RMC shares than us and we lost out. They were very nice about it and we went to a few races at the end of 1980 when Murray Taylor/ Paul Thomson ran him in F3.

You might be pleased to hear that my regular uniform in the F1 paddock includes two Pink Floyd T-shirts (one x Wish You Were Here, one x Animals) plus one that bears the classic Yes logo. I have also just acquired a couple of Kraftwerk T-shirts that will be taken to Barcelona next weekend. If anybody is aware of any decent Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Camel or Caravan apparel, let me know...

How very depressing.

The race cars all look the same as road cars, but with numbers on them

And not a single-seater in sight.

The number 14 Sports 2000 car looks like an old F1300 to me...

Funny, that's exactly what I thought.......hordes of Euro boxes

Mark, the no 14 car is one of the new breed of Sports 2000 cars, specifically the Gunn TS8. Gunns are an extremely popular chassis and how many of you are familiar with other current S2000 manufacturers such as Carbir, MCR and NAGA? I know I wasn't until yesterday.

Well, Alan, as I'm sure you know ( ) I'm certainly not familiar with any of them!

I like the "TS8" suffix though - reminds me of a great car and driver...

Aesthetically, Mark, I concur absolutely. The paddock is now of such a size that cars are no longer crammed next to each other as once they were (all the FF1600s were lined up together at the back, invisible from the media room). There were Porsches of many a different size and shape, too, but they were all lumped together in their own little camps.

But... I was pleasantly surprised to see a significant number of characters I remember from 20-30 years ago. The infectious buzz of yore still exists, but it has been spread out a little - you now find it in little pockets, rather than as a concentrated mass.

As for the Euroboxes, the LMA saloon & sports series seems a useful initiative, to me. It is basically a home for everything and anything, with vast disparities in car and driver performance - there were one or two ex-BTCC Vectras being hounded by everything from Renault Clios upwards. It doesn't have the same allure as Roy Yates's Zodiac v Andrew Talbot's Triumph Herald v Robin Farquhar's Paradise Garage of Knutsford Mini v Tony Sugden's Brook Hire Ford Escort, of course, but it provided a full grid of diverse cars and driving styles, which has to be worth something in an age when Formula Identical tends to rule the roost. Illustration provided below...

Just like Jack Sears' Austin A105, John Whitmore's Mini, Jeff Uren's Zephyr and Jim Clark's Cortina.
Nothing changes really...

Welcome guys to the modern motor racing scene. There are still some terrific things to watch, I hope you were pleasantly suprised at the hoardes of historic Sports 2000s out there amongst the three Sp2000 classes - 36 old cars at Snett last year. A lot is wrong and depressing - noise restrictions and health & safety ( red flags at every minor incident ) however it's not all bad, that buzz you get when you arrive in the paddock is still there!

I got quite a surprise when I went back to Oulton having been away for 10 or 12 years. Although it looks quite smart, clean and tidy, I did find it a bit soulless. The atmosphere was very different, although on my few visits I've never seen the Paddock full like the old days, so perhaps that's the reason.

It was good meeting up with some old faces again. Some are still racing and others are now running cars for younger drivers. Others are still organising things the way they always did

A few of the many historic Sports 2000s active in club racing today:











Another boom category is Classic Clubmans:









The dreaded noise test!

Ah the Raffo, one of a select and of left hand drive Clubmans cars!

I'll look out for you then Simon at Silverstone in July. I've confirmation that my pass from Mr E will be waiting for me, so we'll have to meet up and discuss 1970s club racing and Floyd!

Oh yeah, you did, did you? Do I know you?
Anyway I much prefer Race Centre to Caravan.

Andrew

I have made the point, in this week's MN column, that some of the racing I watched - Club NW FF1600 especially - was among the best I have seen, anywhere, in a very long time. The Pinto S2000 race was excellent, too. And, as I said in a previous post, there was still a buzz in the paddock - it's just slightly less intense than hitherto due to the perimeter fence's expanded girth.

I was impressed by the Lola T492 brigade: the sad thing is that I'm sufficiently antique to have seen them race at S2000's inception...

Cheers,
SA

Me too Simon, Mallory Dan no doubt aswell!

Classic Clubmans brings back such good memories, some races were far better to watch than the same in period F3.

S2000 was also good in its infancy again some class drivers making so special.

I too am old enough to have seen these cars in thier heyday along with the superb Formula 5000 and Atlantic races.


And of course when we had 3 heats and a final to cater for the hordes of Formula Fords in the National series.


Pete

Good wasn't it

Couldn't agree with you more, Pete. Let's have more of it. If only FF could muster the same number of entries today, I'm certain it would be just as good.

It does at one event Alan...6 heats at the annual Walter Hayes Trophy for Kent engined FF's at Silverstone. This year November 1st & 2nd I believe.

It looks as though you had an excellent meeting, in the true club spirit! It's interesting to see that concepts developed in the sixties and seventies for modestly-priced racing are still providing well-stocked grids. In a similar vein, the Historic FF2000 series that I help to run had a 26 car grid at Cadwell the weekend before last. All we need now is a good Modsports and Special Saloons field, and we could relive the long hot summer of '76!

Edit - Make that the short, cool summer of '78 - Sports 2000s weren't around until '77 (I know, I froze at Oulton at their debut!)

Good Lord, was it really that long ago? I knew David quite well - worked with him for a while, even. I wonder what became of him.

Alan's craving for something other than an FF2000 retrospective must be a historic landmark, so here are a few Special Saloons...


John Homewood on one of his relatively rare visits to the Little Budworth suburbs, May 7 1977.


George Hard, Lodge Corner obviously quite a bit harder... local Mini regular ties himself in a knot on May 21 1977.


Keith Beddoe in action at the same meeting, during the Esso Uniflo Special Saloon race...


...which Colin Hawker won in his DFVW. Iconic background furniture includes the base of the Lucas-liveried Oulton Park scoreboard.


Not sure whether this has any ebay potential (I suspect not), but there can't be many signed photos of Derek Walker's Escort in circulation. This is from August 14 1976.

And finally...


Not actually a Special Saloon at all, but I quite like it. Andy Maclelland illustrates how best to deal with Lodge in an Austin A35. Can't identify the bloke on the left, however.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Simon Arron
[B]It is difficult to relate any of the following, all captured on a spring morning in 1978...


Renault 5s on a grassy knoll.

I have to admit it does make one glassy eyed at the fact that although it seems like yesterday, that era of Club Racing has long gone...............and Mr Arron we are no longer 17 anymore

Kind regards

Phil

True according to my passport, but I'm not sure my inner self yet realises as much...

Further to yesterday evening's Special Saloon scanning frenzy, here are a few Modsports curios to sate Mr Morgan's appetite...


Iain Gorrie (GT6) leads Graham Hughes (Midget) at Longridge on April 24 1977 - 14 years to the day before I became a dad for the first time.


Mike Swinnerton's Cox GTM prepares to crest the rise (well, bump) at Quarry Bend's exit on July 3 1977 - not quite as dramatic as the run from Eau Rouge to Raidillon, but a spectacular elevation change by Longridge standards.


September 24 1977: Brian Stevens turns into Lodge Corner, Oulton Park, in his Davrian Mk5. Looking at the programme, I notice that Derek Daly made a winning guest appearance in that afternoon's Sports 2000 race (in a Team Esso Lola T490), although I don't appear to have considered this worthy of a photograph...


Moving on to May 12 1979, Dave Sutherland approaches Deer Leap in his Datsun 240Z.


Pat Longhust's Davrian Mk7 amid the Oulton Park paddock clutter at the same meeting. The Modsports field was so strong that Longhurst was fourth of six reserves on the entry list.


There were a few red E-types knocking around at the time and I'm fairly sure this one, snapped at Aintree on May 3 1982, belonged to Malcolm Hamilton. Will Pringle had a similar car, but I don't recall it ever looking quite this smart.

Nice one Simon! That pic you posted of Kenny's RP24 in the Oulton paddock seems to have disappeared? Could you post it again please?

'Tis done.

Thanks Simon...I'd like to point Simon Hadfield in the direction of that photo as he is restoring a 24 in RMC colours!

Very much so chaps! The first season 77, was pretty much wall to wall T490s, with the 2 Johns in their Tigas, and the odd ex-F100 Royale too. Even that variety was lessened in 78, before the Tigas came back in force in '79.

SA, wasn't DD out in Mike Oustroumoff's T490 to win that race, I wonder how that drive came about? And David Sutherland later went well in a S2000 Royale as I recall, before coming down market to drive a Kremer Brothers 956...

I know its an old point, but it was good to hear MAWP say in commentary just before the FF2000 race at Cadwell the other week, how refreshing it was to see some chassis variety in a single seater race these days.

Is that the same Malcolm Hamilton who now runs a Skid Control School in the UK and Spain. (I do some advertising for him).

Boring info mode: I believe my brother in law brought an RP24 from Will Pringle, which was later traded to David Wynstanley for the PRS. The F3 car used at Aintree Racing Drivers' School, I think, also came from Will Pringle. The last time I saw Will Pringle race was in FF2000. He seems to have driven quite a variety of different cars.

Perhaps it's a good job someone did, then. Here's the very man in Mike Ostroumoff's car, as Dan says.


Alan, I'd be pretty sure that it will be the same Malcolm Hamilton running skid schools. For a long time he lived in a house just round the back of Druids at Oulton Park, and had his own private grandstand built in his garden which commanded a magnificent view from Hill Top, through Druids, and off towarsds the Bailey Bridge. He campaigned ever-more fearsome E Type variants for donkey's years and there are other pics of him posted somewhere on TNF.

It is the same Hamilton as he was saying that he'd moved from the house at the back of Druids. He lives Shropshire way now. I do some ads for him that go in the Mail and Mail on Sunday. He rings every November so I can get them sorted out for the Christmas market.

I knew he had a racing background but never really knew what it was. I was a southerner in those days but I'll ask him about it next November