BTCC Oulton Gold Cup 1984

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ixOvV_MTU


F3000 race Oulton Gold Cup 1989

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=e1fnPHEw1IA


F2000 race Oulton 30 june 1984

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vrgCi0L6OMI

Cheers Steve.

Has there ever been a finer handle for a series than the Harrison Bros Steeplejacks Northern FF2000 Championship (apart from the Bernard Hunter Crane Hire Northern FF1600 Championship, obviously)? They don't name them like they used to...


Paul Howarth (Reynard) breezes past the verdant - you'll have to take my word for that - Merseyside plain.


Good Manners - Dave of that ilk in his Delta.


Ian Khan (Lola T580) prepares for a future racing in everything from F3 to the European Ferrari Challenge via Renault Clios and a BTCC Cavalier.


Andy Dixon, keeper of a 1979-spec Sparton...


...and Andy Feather in the sleeker 1980 model. You wait ages for a picture of Country Corner that doesn't feature somebody careering across the grass, then five come along at once.

Oh I don't know

How about the www.1stopsnoring.co.uk Historic Formula Ford race at Brands last weekend!

I always liked the Soda Stream Sports 2000 Championship (I only ever met 1 person who owned a Soda Stream. To paraphrase Al Murray's pub landlord "Just buy a bottle of Coke you time waster!")

The Lords Taveners FF2000 championship was always a good one, with a guest Lords Tavener at every meeting. I remember John Conteh here at Oulton giving away the trophies.

Actually the 1stopsnoring sponsorship was for our Historic FF2000 race. Maybe it's something to do with Pinto-engined cars.

Hi Cirrus

Sorry I did mean to put 2000 after the Formula Ford.
I thought it might have been a reaction to Mallory Dan's sponsorship!

Sorry Dan!

I beg to disagree Simon. These may not be finer, but they are certainly longer.
I must own up to a little bit of personal involvement here, but how about

Carphone Warehouse Networks Powering TalkTalk Club Formula Ford North West Championship.

This is immediately beaten by

Carphone Warehouse Networks Powering TalkTalk Club Formula Ford Midlands South Championship in association with Richard Egger Insurance.

Glad I'm not engraving the trophies

Is it mandatory to race a Van Diemen RF83? I don't think many other cars will be blessed with sufficient bodywork area to accommodate a championship sticker...

It's why you don't see much sponsorship from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Ladies and Gentlemen can I introduce to you the phenomenon of the mid 1980s that was the Shell Oils Thundersaloon Series

This was a series for…

“a wide variety of special machinery loosely based around the sort of thing you might be driving home down the M56 this evening”

… or so the programme notes claim. They were penned by some bloke called Simon Arron. Wonder what happened to him



Barrie Williams would not doubt have caused a few raised eyebrows on the M56 adopting this angle of approach to the Chester Services in his Nissan 240 R.S.



Vince Woodman and Jonathan Buncombe proved unbeatable in 1985 in their Cologne Capri.



While here Woodman shares the driving with John Cleland in the stunning Vauxhall Carlton.



Having problems spotting Les Blackburn's co - driver in this monster.....



almost as much as the driver himself is having attempting to negotiate Old Hall.

Kind regards

Phil

I think he's in the lounge at Gatwick, waiting for his flight to Singapore...

A few people co-drove "Stars & Stripes" (Gerry Marshall, Hugh Marshall, etc) but I think at the beginning it was Nick Oates (sp).

Typical, the first hint of controversy and he bails!

didn't that car end up in the hands of Nick Oatway in the late eighties ?

Nick Oatway, that was it, not Nick Oates, doh!! If the Shell Oils stickers mean it was the "Shell Oils Thundersaloons" then I think it would be '85-'87 as in '88 it became "Norcross Thundersaloons" but I still can't remember who was driving it then! It was for sale about 3 months ago, with Bonhams but it got pulled for some reason.

Sounds v Glam to me Mr SA!!!

Great stuff Phil- I always enjoyed Thundersaloons a lot, so those really do bring back some memories. It really did turn out some remarkable machinery, particuarly some of the monsters seen in the big class- the Carlton, the Stars & Stripes Manta, Jim Mensley's Chevy-engined Honda Legend, Les Blackburn's gorgeous Cosworth GA-powered Mazda RX7, Rod Birley's similarly-powered Sierra...and some of the lesser-known cars that didn't appear so often- Birley did a part season at the end of the 80's in another Sierra, with an ex-Group C Porsche flat-6 turbo stuffed under the bonnet....Wonderful stuff....

The 'small' class (class split was 2.5 litres from memory?) tended to be dominated by quick BDA-engined Escorts and the Ecurie Ecosse Manta 400- I'd forgotten about Whizzo in the Nissan 240RS though

I've got some photos of that being built, it was great and on the back it said RS Porsche instead of RS Cosworth which seemed to tickle me as a child!!

A couple more shots, this time of the aforementioned Birley Sierra and the Ecurie Ecosse Manta....






Kind regards

Phil

I think these are from the second round of the 1973 JP F3 Championship, Oulton Park, April 20. I'm not sure about their exact provenance. They might have been taken by my dad, but he's a professional photographer (now retired) and I feel they'd have been significantly better if he was responsible. I suspect 12-year-old me probably persuaded him to let me borrow his Pentax for a couple of minutes... I found half a dozen of these lying around in a drawer and I'm sure there are probably a few more somewhere. Naturally, I have now started scouring cupboards high and low when I'm actually supposed to be writing stuff for Autocourse...


Tony Brise (GRD 373) leads winner Russell Wood (March 733).


Brian Henton spearheads a trio of GRD 373s. Gunnar Nordstrom and Wolfgang Bülow follow. It's quite hard to pick out the number on the fourth car, but I think it's Roger Keele (March 723).

I had the side panel from the car after that crash, one of the marshalls gave it to my son as a souvenier It was in the shed for years, the wife made me dump it when we moved house 4 years ago
I think I have a photo of it somewhere.
Outside of Knickerbrook is my favourite spectating spot at Oulton

Paul

It must have been your Dad Simon. I don't think a 12 year old could have got to where they look like they were shot from.

Thanks Paul

I`d forgot all about it.
Thankfully Eric made a full recovery.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee2ADb_BeqM

Cheers Steve,

...except that he was with me, in the spectator enclosure. He might have used his NUJ card to get us in, but he definitely didn't sign on. He always thought motor racing was a crap idea - when I made my FF1600 debut at Oulton in 1987, he tried to persuade me not to go and to take Mum shopping instead. Perhaps he felt the Eccleston brothers would be a bad influence...

Who was in the other car. I always thought it was Roger Eccleston but I'm not sure now.

Here's a few of the Libre series entries at Castle Combe in September 1987....Christ... 21 years ago already!


Tony Trimmer walking towards his (well, John Jordan's) Lola T332

And taking Quarry - doesn't Lola's T330/332 series look the business ?

John Narcisi, Trojan T101 F5000

Think it's Roger Orgee's March 85B F3000. This car was just 2 years old at the time but struggled over the Combe bumps to keep anywhere near the more gently sprung 14 year old Lola ! Mike Wilds guest drove it once and got closer to Trimmer but looked to be having a very wild ride indeed.

Rob 'Black Brick' Cox in the Ralt-Cosworth GAA V6.Think this was an ex works 1984 F2 car (?) Wonder what became of it?

There was a guy (who's name I cannot recall) who turned up at just one Combe event with a massive Lola T530 Can Am car but retired early in the race before getting a chance to show it's potential. The BRSCC then changed the Combe F Libre rules to keep sports cars out of the series the following season and of course the T530 was never seen again , more's the pity.
I didn't get a photo... Does anyone recall this car or driver?

Nice Combe shots, Simon. Much of the clubbie stuff on here is from the North-West (guilty as charged), so it's refreshing to see something a little different. Meanwhile, reverting to type, here are a couple more shots from a damp afternoon at Oulton Park 35 years ago...


Richard Robarts (GRD 373) leads Leonel Friedrich (March 733). Robarts crashed, I believe, and Friedrich finished fifth.


A snapshot of greatness: Tony Brise, before he joined the March exodus.

Anyone notice how much more interesting F3 was when there were multiple chassis manufacturers making cars that were visually immediately distinctive from each other and had engines based on a variety of major car makers production engines and a range of engine builders and developers ? We had weekly changes and developments.
The cars were more interesting to watch race as well , with less engine power, meaning the drivers had to wring out every last ounce of power all the time, with much less downforce decent amount of ground clearance and compliant suspension.
Contrast that 70s & 80s era with the uniform dullness that is effectively one-make formula 3 today.

I'm wondering if there is much point in having the 'British' F3 series these days. Now called the 'British F3 International Championship' (!), apart from one meeting at each of the following UK circuits Brands,Thruxton, Oulton, Silverstone, Donington, Croft and Snett, rounds are also held at Spa, Monza, down town Bucharest and next year Bahrain! The organisers claim they need to race on as many F1 GP tracks as possible as that is what the drivers want, the ones with the budgets to keep the teams in business. They say if they don't, they will lose out to the F3 Euroseries, drivers will go to teams there instead. But I wonder how many we will see on the grid next year anyway, with F3 budgets for the British Championship alone approaching half a million pounds in this tricky financial climate?

Check out the punter quotient, too. I haven't been to a British F3 meeting for quite some time (Rainford attempted to lure me to Donington Park on October 12, although I can't go because I'm covering the Toyota Vitz Cup race or something similar at Fuji), but I'm told audience figures aren't great.

Attendance at British F3 meetings has slowly dropped off over the decades. I remember August Bank Holiday Silverstone meetings where the Woodcote grandstands were full. As to the European escapades I always thought that a BRITISH championship was only allowed one "foreign" trip per annum - must be making an exception for the overly complex and highly expensive F3 brigade!

:\

Not really my field, but I remember when I was covering the series in the mid '80s we went to Spa one weekend and Zandvoort the next

Alan

the other driver was Chris Latham.


Steve.

Mr Arron was able to write a detailed description of this incident for MN even though he and I had been at Lodge for this practice session ..........after Steve gave us an exclusive viewing

Kind regards

Phil

Mallory Park 11th May 1986 and a trio of driver/car combinations from the Class B race for the Uniroyal Tyre Production Car Championship.

A highly talented and much missed driver.....





..Ian Taylor in the Carrolls Transport Mercedes 190E

These two shots were taken in the morning....





...as both the Escorts of Mike Smith and Bob Sands were destroyed at the Esses on lap one of the race in an extremely violent accident.

Kind regards

Phil

Oulton clubbie 93' Fosters

Fiestas getting up close and personal


Which way should we go


Formula Ford action


Side by side


You cant beat a good clubbie at Oulton

Wow, great to see these - was one of the best, most exciting and most disappointing races and sticks in my memory the most of all the races I've ever been to!! The two Turbos were put at the back of the grid due to boost lights going out and then when coming through the back the chaos began!! I have loads of pictures from it but not taken by me, sorry!!

I have in-car footage from Bob's car and also the in-car footage from my Dad's car - including the arguement with the marshlas - wow!! I'll take it to the TNF meeting on Monday as I think people will be shocked and it also links to our recent TNF discussion on Flag signals in motor racing.

Both myself and fellow TNF contributer Alan Cox were standing in the middle of the argument and it struck me that the marshal who had a go at your dad was either extremely brave or extremely stupid

He made a rather imposing figure when he unstrapped himself from his car

Thankfully it all calmed down after a few tense minutes....

Kind regards

Phil

OT I know but it was pretty scary and I was rather on Dad's side as he would never do anything to jeopardise a marshal's safety - he did have his license endorsed and it went to tribunal and was over-turned in the end if I remember correctly - he wasn't the only one to miss the flags too.

Luckily the in-car camera was running through and after it all and the funniest bit was after the argument and he'd said how safe a driver he was, he got back in the car all pumped up and tore off, no belts/helmet, slung it into the hairpin at full chat and then did the biggest powerslide ever coming out of the hairpin before thundering into the pits, not a happy chappy!!

Any chance of it appearing on YouTube?

I'd love too but there's about 30 minutes of it and I don't know how to "cut" the DVD, sorry!! The Southern TNFers can watch it on Monday at the Biggleswade meet; maybe we can do a transcript like the recent Joe Kinnear journalist rant!!

That would be good

Some at Baldock have seen it Gregor...

I showed them at a previous meeting, a while ago as I've missed the last couple of meetings.

It's 1977, Longridge racing circuit and the Formula Libre 'pack' stream round Weighbridge.

Crickey that is a capacity grid for Longridge ;)

Love the Datson 240Z.....

Kind regards

Phil

Steve, put me out of my misery please. I walked round the site in about 2000 and worked out bits of it but so much has been built on and altered that it's hard to make it all out now. Is the corner in this shot at the 'far end' (south west)?

The aerial photo on Google...

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=...3,0.013733&z=17

is hard to relate to the track diagrams I have seen....maybe I'm just being thick?

Is the second car in the shot Warren Booth's Lotus 69?

The corner in the shot is the opposite end to the paddock. As to orientation not so sure after 30 years!



Yes.

Thanks, that makes it lower left in the aerial photo I think.
Looks like the track in the foreground of your photo has now been grassed over in places and used as standing for caravans in others. The big building now in the middle of the site, which is a swimming pool/leisure centre , is more or less where the track pinched together at the only left hander. I remember we spoke to one or two of the more elderly looking residents on our wander round and none of them had any idea Longridge had been a race circuit.

En route to Longridge on my first ever visit I was unsure of the way so stopped and asked a local, they had no idea but suggested I ask at the newsagents. They were able to direct me there as it was owned by John Kent.

So it would appear that people still have no idea where the circuit is or was!