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Help, please, with date, location, and timing mechanism.


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#1 Kingsleyrob

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Posted 01 February 2011 - 13:52

Thanks to all who provided some details after my recent request for information on Alan Rogers.

You may recall that my quest for information is in connection with some very interesting footage that my colleagues in the MG Car Club are working on with a view to making a commercially available DVD.

You'll find on this clip some footage from an unknown sprint meeting in a parkland setting. Can anyone help to identify the place and date please? What we can say is that it's probably early fifties and may be an MGCC event.



We have identified two of the cars and drivers:

KTU 343 is the "Rojah" special (ex Alan Rogers) driven here by Major Arnold Pownall. He was later the MGCC team manager at Le Mans in 1959 to 61.
DRJ 600 is the Allard M type of Reg Holt, well known rally driver from Cheshire.

Also can anyone identify the type of timing equipment in use and how it works? We know that driving over the "hockey stick" at the start sets the stop watch running, but what happens at the finish? Does the car cut the wire?

Thanks in anticipation of some more information and insight from the vast font of knowledge that is TNF!!

Rob :wave:

Edited by Kingsleyrob, 01 February 2011 - 13:56.


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#2 Roger Clark

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Posted 01 February 2011 - 14:17

Adam Ferrington has identified this as the NMMC speed trials at Chatsworth on 1st April 1950.

#3 Kingsleyrob

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Posted 01 February 2011 - 14:23

Adam Ferrington has identified this as the NMMC speed trials at Chatsworth on 1st April 1950.

Hi Roger, many thanks for your prompt response. I recall when we spoke a couple of weeks ago that you mentioned that Adam had programmes from some of the events on the footage after he'd had a chance to look at the "rough cut" DVDs. Is this one of them, do you know?

Rob :wave:

#4 Allan Lupton

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Posted 01 February 2011 - 14:33

Judging from the close-up of the finish-line equipment and its reel of thread, I'm pretty sure it was a break-thread system. The thread across the road holds a pair of contacts open until the car breaks the thread. A new thread is then laid and so on.

Originally I thought it might be one of the Luton Hoo events, but that had an out-and-return course with start and finish together and some of the cars are later - as you say, early '50s. Northern registration numbers (e.g. Manchester, Darlington, Cheshire) suggest it was north of t'Trent.

Edited to say: this was prepared about 15 minutes before it was sent but the 'phone rang . . .
Chatsworth, as I said, is northish and 1/4/50 counts as early '50s for most.

Edited by Allan Lupton, 01 February 2011 - 14:36.


#5 CoulthardD

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Posted 01 February 2011 - 15:21

Given the prompt of Chatsworth, it does look like the estate road from the house (occasionally visible through the trees?) across the pasture and down to the 'Golden Gates'. The assembly area seems to be at the junction of paths near the present chicken huts (!) and the slightly hilly area used for the start of classic car runs, such as the MGOC 'Kimber Run'.

DC