7 replies to this topic

[RJE]

While looking for something else, I recently stumbled across an American citizen by the name of J. Bruce Campbell. He would seem to have rather esoteric views on a number of matters of concern to the the US military, which I hasten to say I have little or no interest in. However his CV contains reference to the fact that he raced cars in both England and Australia, although there are no dates offered.

I seem to recall and even have had some dealings with a fellow who came to Britain with his wife in the late 60s with the intension of making a career out of motor racing. I seem to recall that they set up home in a flat in the Bromley/Sidcup area. He bought and attemped to convert and early Cooper T51, or such, for use in the early days of Formula Ford. This was obviously a somewhat misguided venture given that even in it's earliest days Formula Ford chassis technology had advanced far beyond that of the T51. I am curious to know if anybody knows of this individual or individuals if they are not the same person. And if they are not one and the same what became of the Cooper owner, his car and which car it may have been.

[S&M Minis]

His CV mentions that he ran the "School of Slide Control", and finding that fact was as long as I wanted to linger on his site! Googling the school brought up a link to an article in the November 1970 issue of Popular Mechanics that describes the course conducted by Mr. Campbell and associates. In the article it states that he raced Formula II and III in Australia and England and that at the time of the article he was 23 years old. Does that fit your recollections at all? The link to the article is embedded below, hopefully it functions.

http://books.google....M...rol&f=false

[uechtel]

A driver with the name Bruce Campbell started frequently in Formula 3 races in Germany in the early fifties:

http://www.formel3gu...erburgring1.pdf
http://www.formel3gu...erburgring2.pdf

http://www.formel3gu...-hockenheim.pdf
http://www.formel3gu...e/1950-kiel.pdf
http://www.formel3gu...-leverkusen.pdf
http://www.formel3gu...enzlandring.pdf
http://www.formel3gu...50-feldberg.pdf

http://www.formel3gu...-hockenheim.pdf

But looking at the brithdate it would not be the same man.

[RJE]

The man I met would have only been in his 20s in 1967/9 so could not have raced in the 50s. The person refered to in S&M Minis post could be him, although to be 23 years old in 1970 would make him quite young to have come to the UK, surely having to have established some sort of record in the US, to know he was good enough to make it in what was then the hot bed of motor sport.

Somebody here must have a record of the F3 and F2 entry lists from that period.

Did F3 and F2 exist in those formats in Australia during the late 1960s?

[David McKinney]

There were Australia F2 and F3 classes in the 1960s, but they were not the same as the international formulae

[Ray Bell]

That's right...

ANF2 was virtually an extension of Formula Junior, same capacity, basic rules etc. No Formula 3 until about 1968/9, then that took over from ANF2.

What was effectively Australia's F2 was called ANF1½, it was for 'free design' engines up to 1.5 litres but almost everything that ran had a Ford/Lotus twin cam engine.

A check of the index in John Medley's Bathurst book reveals no J. Bruce or Bruce or J. Campbell, not that that's a definitive statement about racing in Australia, but it's a good start. I certainly don't remember him.

[ReWind]

The man I met would have only been in his 20s in 1967/9

His age is no big secret. He himself says he was born in Chicago in 1946.
He could be this driver but maybe that man was/is someone else. Perhaps Pete Lyons knows where the 1969 CanAm racer came from.

[Frank S]

His age is no big secret. He himself says he was born in Chicago in 1946.
He could be this driver but maybe that man was/is someone else. Perhaps Pete Lyons knows where the 1969 CanAm racer came from.

I'm almost certain the face at the top of J. Bruce Campbell's Net page is not "this driver", 1969 CanAm driver Bruce Campbell, who was a SoCal SCCA driver and my instructor at a Riverside International Raceway SCCA school in 1968. He's the one who told me to look out for Turn Two because it was known to get "slicker 'n snot" with no warning.