October 23, 1955: Syracuse - Connaught - Brooks.
I feel it is fair to say that today marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of British F1 supremacy - with that remaining Italian team on occasion showing superior form to the British-based teams. Still, without applying the British technological advances seen in the last half century, Ferrari would have withered away...
I take the liberty of posting this note from Duncan Rabagliati - I'm sure he won't mind sharing it in this forum:
"At Syracuse in 1955, Tony Brooks, driving a works Connaught , won a major Continental Formula One Grand Prix for the first time since Sir Henry Segrave won the San Sebastian Grand prix for Sunbeam in 1924, ,defeating the works team of five Maseratis on their home ground, and from that moment on , the face of Formula One was changed, leading to the great domination in the years ahead of the British teams and the British motor racing industry
You have only to read both Jenks’ contemporary reports of the Mille Miglia , and then of the Syracuse GP, to understand how he appreciated the magnitude and significance of Tony Brooks’ achievement. Not only did a young dental student leap out of the unknown into history, but the long trip down to Syracuse for the Connaught mechanics in their ancient bus cum transporter , was a “ Boys’ Own” story in itself
With the psychological barrier broken, just as in athletics , when Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile, the other British marques, Vanwall, BRM, Cooper and Lotus thereafter took a quantum leap forward, and from 1955 onwards, Britain all but never looked back
It is also truly remarkeable that not only are the two works Connaught drivers at that race, Brooks and Les Leston, still around today, but so are two of the three original Connaught proprietors, Mike Oliver and Kenneth McAlpine, ( Rodney Clarke having died some years ago ) both of whom also drove the Grand Prix cars. In addition, three prominent Connaught works drivers are amongst our most active Formula One veterans – Sir Stirling Moss, Roy Salvadori, and Eric Thompson. Add to them other surviving Connaught GP drivers, John Coombs, Leslie Marr, John Young, and even Bernie Ecclestone [ on the strength of at least one official practice lap for the 1958 Monaco GP !!! – and he personally owns one of the cars today] and you have a glimpse of Britain’s greatest days, in one snapshot !! –
And now, Britain’s premier historic motor racing club, the HSCC, plan to celebrate this major historic event by making Connaught the feature marque of the 2006 Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting , where both Formula One and sports/racing Connaughts competed in their heyday, still within the 50th Year of that moment when Tony Brooks took the flag in Sicily
With an amazing 30 of the 34 original Connaught racing and sports cars built at Send still surviving today, almost all in pristine and running condition , plans are already in hand to run both a feature race, recreating the atmosphere of that Grand Prix, and demonstrations
Duncan Rabagliati
CONNAUGHT REGISTER"
October 23, 1955: Syracuse - Connaught - Brooks
Started by
Bonde
, Oct 22 2005 23:13
22 replies to this topic
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#2
Barry Boor
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Posted 23 October 2005 - 08:46
This is very good news (the Connaughts at the Gold Cup meeting) and I for one will raise a glass (Coca Cola, of course) to the memory of that day in Sicily.
#3
Roger Clark
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Posted 23 October 2005 - 11:15
Definitely an anniversary worth raising a glass to, and I am glad that Duncan Rabagliatti mentioned the heroic contribution of the Connaught mechanics in getting the cars to Sicily. They were held up in France for the lack of the required paperwork and the drove in relays, non-stop to Sicily. The poor 'bus ran out of brakes near Naples; in those days a racing mechanic had to be as accomplished at repairing commercial vehicles as working on a Grand Prix car. In all, it took them a week to reach Sicily. Brooks' performance must have made it all worthwhile.
The Connaughts at the Gold Cup is certainly something to look forward to, and I hope it will finally give the marque something of the recognition it deserves. What might a Brooks/Scott-Brown pairing have achieved in 1956?
The Connaughts at the Gold Cup is certainly something to look forward to, and I hope it will finally give the marque something of the recognition it deserves. What might a Brooks/Scott-Brown pairing have achieved in 1956?
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Doug Nye
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Posted 23 October 2005 - 15:50
I was going to 'do' something for 'The Daily Telegraph' to mark this important anniversary but truth is we celebrated the 40th anniversary in the newspaper so this time round I passed on it. For what it's worth, here's the 40th anniversary piece, compiled with Tony himself and Connaught's contemporary engine development director, sometime RAF and Folland Aircraft chief test pilot, the great Mike Oliver...
BROOKS, CONNAUGHT AND THE SYRACUSE GP
By Doug Nye
(Background - This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the first significant Grand Prix for 31 years to be won by a British car and driver. From such small beginnings grew this country's dominant modern racing industry.)
"Find a record of the English national anthem. Be quick!", snapped race director Renzo Castagneto, his words drowned by the flat, harsh bellow of a Formula 1 car booming by with a split exhaust. It was British racing green, number '22', leading the Grand Prix with ten laps to run - this was almost unprecedented. Fifty seconds later a flame-red factory Maserati, driven by local hero Luigi Musso, screamed by in hopeless pursuit. Whenever pressed, that green car ahead could pull out two seconds a lap.
Thirty-one long years had passed since any British car/driver combination had last won a Continental Grand Prix. Now, 23-year old Manchester dental student Tony Brooks was poised to end that drought. His car was a Connaught - built behind a garage on the A3 London-Portsmouth road at Send in Surrey. Until that weekend he had never even sat in a Formula 1 car before, while the Connaught team itself was so strapped for cash it transported its cars in a pair of worn-out AEC Greenline coaches...The ways of Formula 1 were, ahem, different then...
But since that Syracuse Grand Prix, run on October 23, 1955, other British Formula 1 teams have won some 90 per cent of all races run, and this country's motor racing industry is by far the world's largest and most effective.
Tony Brooks' win that day was the first for a British car and driver since Henry Segrave had won for Sunbeam at San Sebastian in 1924. It was celebrated last weekend at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, when Brooks and Connaught technical director Mike Oliver recalled that momentous Sicilian weekend before an enthusiast audience.
Connaught Engineering had been created in the late 1940s by two ex-RAF pilots - Rodney Clarke and Mike Oliver, backed by Kenneth McAlpine. They first built sports cars then handsome Formula 2 single-seaters before aspiring in 1954-55 to Formula 1. Then came a last-minute invitation to the Syracuse Grand Prix, postponed from its normal Spring date.
Mike Oliver: "The call came just nine days before. Syracuse is on the southern tip of Sicily, a 2,000 mile drive, but start money was good, £1,000 per car plus all expenses. We took a streamliner for Les Leston, and an open-wheeled car for this pleasant young newcomer. He was very inexperienced but came highly recommended by one of our old-car owners, John Riseley-Prichard for whom he had driven in Formula 2...
"We tested the two cars briefly at Goodwood, then sent them off in our old Greenline coaches - which were converted with the seats removed and doors cut in the back to accept the cars."
On the Monday, Oliver flew his road car out via Lydd-Le Touquet, expecting the transporters to be well south of Lyons. "But the RAC desk had a message for me, I was urgently required at Dunkirk - the AECs had been impounded...".
Their French Ponts et Chaussees permits had expired so Mike had to rush to Lille, find the proper office and arrange fresh paperwork. "We finally set off late that night, doubting we could reach Syracuse for Friday practice...".
They were right. They had also misjudged the Southern Italian mountain roads through Calabria: "...where the hairpins were so tight we had to reverse the AECs just to get round. In one hour's motoring we covered only 11 miles...".
Meanwhile Tony Brooks, the novice driver, had flown out - itself an epic - via Rome, to Catania. "As a penniless dental student I couldn't afford a hire car, so I rented a Vespa scooter. I hung around the Syracuse paddock that first practice day, wondering if the team would ever arrive. That evening I ground round lap after lap on the Vespa just to discover which way the circuit went..."
It was a daunting circuit too, 3.4 miles of bumpy public roads lined by unforgiving concrete walls, and including two level crossings. Over the bumps, the Vespa's twist-grip throttle split the webbing between Tony's right index finger and thumb, creating a searing, weeping sore.
Mike Oliver and the first AEC arrived late that Friday, the second coach - which had burned-out its brakes in Calabria - grinding in on the Saturday morning, the mechanic crews exhausted.
Oliver: "Tony sat in his car for the first time that Saturday morning and I limited his practice to save the car for the race. I was desperate he shouldn't break it, because if we failed to start we'd earn no start money to cover the trip."
Yet despite this restricted practice, Brooks qualified third fastest, only marginally slower than the factory Maseratis of Musso and Gigi Villoresi. He recalls: "They had more power, but Syracuse's curves and swerves put the accent on roadholding and handling, which were Connaught strengths."
Mike Oliver: "Our engines were based upon parts made by a little company at Tolworth named Alta, and we had to tune them so highly to be at all competitive it then became a question of 'Will it last?'. After a slow start, Tony settled into the race, caught the Maseratis and - glory be - passed Musso for the lead. Towards the end Musso looked as if he had settled for second place, and when our car went by with its engine sounding peculiar the crowd were expecting it to go bang, but in fact it was merely the exhaust which had split - the engine stayed healthy."
Tony: "I was well aware of how marginal reliability might be, so once I had established a lead, I used 500 revs fewer than Mike's limit and just nursed it round to the end..."
Mike: "Tony was fantastic. Without risking the car he was two seconds a lap faster than Musso, he raised the lap record from 99mph to 102, and won by almost a minute. Dusk was falling as Tony came out of the last corner to take the flag. I remember Denis Jenkinson of 'Motor Sport' magazine - Moss's Mille Miglia-winning navigator - nudging my elbow and saying 'Mike - This is history!'. Tony was such a self-effacing chap I had to push him up onto the podium...he didn't want to go."
Tony: "I found the crowd very friendly but overwhelming. I just wanted to get back to our hotel on the Vespa, but by this time my sore hand was in a terrible state. To pad it against the twist-grip throttle I wrapped a handkerchief round it which I then tried to pull tight in my teeth - surrounded by this seething mob of excited Sicilians. But as I tugged the handkerchief tight with my teeth it dislodged my expensive dental bridgework which shot out under their feet!
"I dived down to to retrieve it but they hadn't noticed - they made even more of a fuss once I was grovelling around on my hands and knees, and I never did find it..."
Whistling his excuses through a lopsided grin, Tony extricated himself and rode back to the hotel for a bath. Being an exceptionally well-organised young man he had a spare dental bridge which he fitted for the prize-giving dinner that evening "...though it was terribly insecure"; the race organisers interpreting his demeanour as Britannic stiff upper lip.
Connaught's elated mechanics then eased their AECs the 2,000 miles back to base, Mike Oliver stopping off at Pirelli, Milan, to arrange racing tyres for the following year. "After our win it was a long meeting, involving all Pirelli's directors, speaking through an interpreter. Finally the most senior of them asked what did this unknown young driver 'Broo-ooks' do for a living? I replied that he was a trainee dentist, to which the interpreter responded 'The director says, that if Signor Broo-ooks, is as good a dentist as he is a racing driver, the next time he comes to England, he would like to make an appointment with him'.
Tony went on to drive for BRM, Vanwall and Ferrari 1956-61, competing in 38 World Championship-qualifying Grands Prix of which he won six.. He shared another historic all-British first - this time the first Formula 1 World Championship round win - with Moss in the Vanwall at Aintree '57, and went on to win the Belgian, French, German (twice) and Italian GPs. He was third in the 1958 Drivers' Championship and second - pipped at the post - in 1959. Stirling Moss was - and is - a great fan, describing the retiring Brooks as "the greatest unknown racing driver" of their era. Connaught closed down, having completely run out of money, in 1957, and Mike Oliver returned to flying, becoming Folland's chief test pilot developing the exquisite little Gnat fighter/trainer later so famous as chosen mount of the RAF's Red Arrows.
Waving the flag you see - in the days before such behaviour became unfashionable.
SIDEBAR - THE WINNING CAR?
Tony Brooks' victorious Connaught 'B1' returned to Syracuse in April 1957, to be driven by Les Leston. But a drive-shaft broke in practice there, its flailing end splitting the fuel tank whose nitro-methane contents ignited on the hot exhaust. So the heroine of '55 was burned to the ground, but its scorched chassis survived to be sold in the Connaught closure sale of late 1957.
Into the Historic motor racing era of the 1960s and '70s, it was then sold-on with sufficient bits to recreate a running car. From 1971-74 this 'entity' was actually owned by H. Jones - ten years later the posthumous Falklands VC - but he never had the time to make it a runner. As recently as this Autumn, 'B1', now recreated around this chassis, has been acquired by a past owner/entrant of other Connaughts; Bernie Ecclestone, head of the Formula One Constructors' Association, and architect of modern Formula 1 motor racing.
ENDS
DCN
BROOKS, CONNAUGHT AND THE SYRACUSE GP
By Doug Nye
(Background - This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the first significant Grand Prix for 31 years to be won by a British car and driver. From such small beginnings grew this country's dominant modern racing industry.)
"Find a record of the English national anthem. Be quick!", snapped race director Renzo Castagneto, his words drowned by the flat, harsh bellow of a Formula 1 car booming by with a split exhaust. It was British racing green, number '22', leading the Grand Prix with ten laps to run - this was almost unprecedented. Fifty seconds later a flame-red factory Maserati, driven by local hero Luigi Musso, screamed by in hopeless pursuit. Whenever pressed, that green car ahead could pull out two seconds a lap.
Thirty-one long years had passed since any British car/driver combination had last won a Continental Grand Prix. Now, 23-year old Manchester dental student Tony Brooks was poised to end that drought. His car was a Connaught - built behind a garage on the A3 London-Portsmouth road at Send in Surrey. Until that weekend he had never even sat in a Formula 1 car before, while the Connaught team itself was so strapped for cash it transported its cars in a pair of worn-out AEC Greenline coaches...The ways of Formula 1 were, ahem, different then...
But since that Syracuse Grand Prix, run on October 23, 1955, other British Formula 1 teams have won some 90 per cent of all races run, and this country's motor racing industry is by far the world's largest and most effective.
Tony Brooks' win that day was the first for a British car and driver since Henry Segrave had won for Sunbeam at San Sebastian in 1924. It was celebrated last weekend at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, when Brooks and Connaught technical director Mike Oliver recalled that momentous Sicilian weekend before an enthusiast audience.
Connaught Engineering had been created in the late 1940s by two ex-RAF pilots - Rodney Clarke and Mike Oliver, backed by Kenneth McAlpine. They first built sports cars then handsome Formula 2 single-seaters before aspiring in 1954-55 to Formula 1. Then came a last-minute invitation to the Syracuse Grand Prix, postponed from its normal Spring date.
Mike Oliver: "The call came just nine days before. Syracuse is on the southern tip of Sicily, a 2,000 mile drive, but start money was good, £1,000 per car plus all expenses. We took a streamliner for Les Leston, and an open-wheeled car for this pleasant young newcomer. He was very inexperienced but came highly recommended by one of our old-car owners, John Riseley-Prichard for whom he had driven in Formula 2...
"We tested the two cars briefly at Goodwood, then sent them off in our old Greenline coaches - which were converted with the seats removed and doors cut in the back to accept the cars."
On the Monday, Oliver flew his road car out via Lydd-Le Touquet, expecting the transporters to be well south of Lyons. "But the RAC desk had a message for me, I was urgently required at Dunkirk - the AECs had been impounded...".
Their French Ponts et Chaussees permits had expired so Mike had to rush to Lille, find the proper office and arrange fresh paperwork. "We finally set off late that night, doubting we could reach Syracuse for Friday practice...".
They were right. They had also misjudged the Southern Italian mountain roads through Calabria: "...where the hairpins were so tight we had to reverse the AECs just to get round. In one hour's motoring we covered only 11 miles...".
Meanwhile Tony Brooks, the novice driver, had flown out - itself an epic - via Rome, to Catania. "As a penniless dental student I couldn't afford a hire car, so I rented a Vespa scooter. I hung around the Syracuse paddock that first practice day, wondering if the team would ever arrive. That evening I ground round lap after lap on the Vespa just to discover which way the circuit went..."
It was a daunting circuit too, 3.4 miles of bumpy public roads lined by unforgiving concrete walls, and including two level crossings. Over the bumps, the Vespa's twist-grip throttle split the webbing between Tony's right index finger and thumb, creating a searing, weeping sore.
Mike Oliver and the first AEC arrived late that Friday, the second coach - which had burned-out its brakes in Calabria - grinding in on the Saturday morning, the mechanic crews exhausted.
Oliver: "Tony sat in his car for the first time that Saturday morning and I limited his practice to save the car for the race. I was desperate he shouldn't break it, because if we failed to start we'd earn no start money to cover the trip."
Yet despite this restricted practice, Brooks qualified third fastest, only marginally slower than the factory Maseratis of Musso and Gigi Villoresi. He recalls: "They had more power, but Syracuse's curves and swerves put the accent on roadholding and handling, which were Connaught strengths."
Mike Oliver: "Our engines were based upon parts made by a little company at Tolworth named Alta, and we had to tune them so highly to be at all competitive it then became a question of 'Will it last?'. After a slow start, Tony settled into the race, caught the Maseratis and - glory be - passed Musso for the lead. Towards the end Musso looked as if he had settled for second place, and when our car went by with its engine sounding peculiar the crowd were expecting it to go bang, but in fact it was merely the exhaust which had split - the engine stayed healthy."
Tony: "I was well aware of how marginal reliability might be, so once I had established a lead, I used 500 revs fewer than Mike's limit and just nursed it round to the end..."
Mike: "Tony was fantastic. Without risking the car he was two seconds a lap faster than Musso, he raised the lap record from 99mph to 102, and won by almost a minute. Dusk was falling as Tony came out of the last corner to take the flag. I remember Denis Jenkinson of 'Motor Sport' magazine - Moss's Mille Miglia-winning navigator - nudging my elbow and saying 'Mike - This is history!'. Tony was such a self-effacing chap I had to push him up onto the podium...he didn't want to go."
Tony: "I found the crowd very friendly but overwhelming. I just wanted to get back to our hotel on the Vespa, but by this time my sore hand was in a terrible state. To pad it against the twist-grip throttle I wrapped a handkerchief round it which I then tried to pull tight in my teeth - surrounded by this seething mob of excited Sicilians. But as I tugged the handkerchief tight with my teeth it dislodged my expensive dental bridgework which shot out under their feet!
"I dived down to to retrieve it but they hadn't noticed - they made even more of a fuss once I was grovelling around on my hands and knees, and I never did find it..."
Whistling his excuses through a lopsided grin, Tony extricated himself and rode back to the hotel for a bath. Being an exceptionally well-organised young man he had a spare dental bridge which he fitted for the prize-giving dinner that evening "...though it was terribly insecure"; the race organisers interpreting his demeanour as Britannic stiff upper lip.
Connaught's elated mechanics then eased their AECs the 2,000 miles back to base, Mike Oliver stopping off at Pirelli, Milan, to arrange racing tyres for the following year. "After our win it was a long meeting, involving all Pirelli's directors, speaking through an interpreter. Finally the most senior of them asked what did this unknown young driver 'Broo-ooks' do for a living? I replied that he was a trainee dentist, to which the interpreter responded 'The director says, that if Signor Broo-ooks, is as good a dentist as he is a racing driver, the next time he comes to England, he would like to make an appointment with him'.
Tony went on to drive for BRM, Vanwall and Ferrari 1956-61, competing in 38 World Championship-qualifying Grands Prix of which he won six.. He shared another historic all-British first - this time the first Formula 1 World Championship round win - with Moss in the Vanwall at Aintree '57, and went on to win the Belgian, French, German (twice) and Italian GPs. He was third in the 1958 Drivers' Championship and second - pipped at the post - in 1959. Stirling Moss was - and is - a great fan, describing the retiring Brooks as "the greatest unknown racing driver" of their era. Connaught closed down, having completely run out of money, in 1957, and Mike Oliver returned to flying, becoming Folland's chief test pilot developing the exquisite little Gnat fighter/trainer later so famous as chosen mount of the RAF's Red Arrows.
Waving the flag you see - in the days before such behaviour became unfashionable.
SIDEBAR - THE WINNING CAR?
Tony Brooks' victorious Connaught 'B1' returned to Syracuse in April 1957, to be driven by Les Leston. But a drive-shaft broke in practice there, its flailing end splitting the fuel tank whose nitro-methane contents ignited on the hot exhaust. So the heroine of '55 was burned to the ground, but its scorched chassis survived to be sold in the Connaught closure sale of late 1957.
Into the Historic motor racing era of the 1960s and '70s, it was then sold-on with sufficient bits to recreate a running car. From 1971-74 this 'entity' was actually owned by H. Jones - ten years later the posthumous Falklands VC - but he never had the time to make it a runner. As recently as this Autumn, 'B1', now recreated around this chassis, has been acquired by a past owner/entrant of other Connaughts; Bernie Ecclestone, head of the Formula One Constructors' Association, and architect of modern Formula 1 motor racing.
ENDS
DCN
#5
Vicuna
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#6
D-Type
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#7
Charles Helps
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Posted 24 October 2005 - 19:59
This is really odd. Whenever I type pit pass without a space the word disappears. I think a similar thing happened to your reply D-Type.
The article is on the pit pass website and the article ID is 26330, so the whole URL looks a bit like http://www.pit pass.com/fes_php/pit pass_feature_item.php?fes_action=&fes_art_id=26330 but with the spaces in the name pit pass removed.
I expect there's a reason for this
If you can't find the article try the pit pass website and look for another article by Mike Lawrence and then find other articles by him. The one you want is titled Brooks 17/10/2005
The article is on the pit pass website and the article ID is 26330, so the whole URL looks a bit like http://www.pit pass.com/fes_php/pit pass_feature_item.php?fes_action=&fes_art_id=26330 but with the spaces in the name pit pass removed.
I expect there's a reason for this
If you can't find the article try the pit pass website and look for another article by Mike Lawrence and then find other articles by him. The one you want is titled Brooks 17/10/2005
#8
Mike Lawrence
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Posted 25 October 2005 - 02:09
It is and it was our Great and Glorious Leader, Duncan Rabagliati who alerted many of us to the crisis. Everyone was chuntering on about Moss in the Mille Miglia (and Tourist Trophy and Targa Florio, a unique treble in one year) and were missing Brooks. As Duncan says, Brooks taught the English how to win a Grand Prix. We had won Le Mans nine times when Tony wrought his miracle, but we had not won a Grand Prix for more than 30 years.
I am a patriotic Englishman (don't call me British) so I have a certain bias. Even accounting for that, I would say that the greatest two drives in history are, joint equal, Tony Brooks, Connaught, 1955 Syracuse GP and Stirling Moss, Cooper-Climax, 1958 Argentine GP.
The incredible thing is that most of Tony's career had been spent driving in BARC Members' handicap races at Goodwood on Saturday afternoons and, this has just entered my mind, I am not sure he ever won a scratch race until Syracuse. Here is another thought I have just entertained, the distance of the Syracuse GP exceeded the sum of all the miles that Tony had previously raced in a single-seat car and certainly exceeded the sum of all the miles he had raced, in any car, prior to 1955.
Tony's greatest fan is Sir Stirling and that, I think, says everything. Damn Moss for getting in the way, I wanted to be Tony's Number One Fan.
I am a patriotic Englishman (don't call me British) so I have a certain bias. Even accounting for that, I would say that the greatest two drives in history are, joint equal, Tony Brooks, Connaught, 1955 Syracuse GP and Stirling Moss, Cooper-Climax, 1958 Argentine GP.
The incredible thing is that most of Tony's career had been spent driving in BARC Members' handicap races at Goodwood on Saturday afternoons and, this has just entered my mind, I am not sure he ever won a scratch race until Syracuse. Here is another thought I have just entertained, the distance of the Syracuse GP exceeded the sum of all the miles that Tony had previously raced in a single-seat car and certainly exceeded the sum of all the miles he had raced, in any car, prior to 1955.
Tony's greatest fan is Sir Stirling and that, I think, says everything. Damn Moss for getting in the way, I wanted to be Tony's Number One Fan.
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Doug Nye
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Posted 25 October 2005 - 10:49
Mike - many of us never needed alerting to a situation of which we were already well aware. As for No 1 fan status, fight you both for it? 
DCN
DCN
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Peter Morley
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Posted 25 October 2005 - 12:24
Originally posted by Doug Nye
Mike - many of us never needed alerting to a situation of which we were already well aware. As for No 1 fan status, fight you both for it?
DCN
I think Dad beats you all - since Tony's driven his Connaught a few times now (Aintree, Goodwood etc) he's been spotted buying T.B. memorabilia on Ebay.................
Back in the distant past (when we lived in England) he would even detour past T.B.'s Lancia garage at every opportunity!
Of course driving a clapped out Lancia meant that any trip tended to pass as many Lancia garages as possible!
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Mike Lawrence
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Posted 25 October 2005 - 17:03
Doug Nye and me fighting to be Tony Brooks's Number One fan? Sumo comes to TNF!
#12
Barry Boor
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Posted 25 October 2005 - 18:01
Not an event I would wish to observe, thank you, Mike & Doug.Anyway, I bet Tony has at least 1,000 number one fans! There is certainly another up here in N. W. Wales.
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D-Type
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Posted 25 October 2005 - 20:18
We're all in good company:
(From Nigel Roebuck's Chasing the Title)At the Goodwood Festival of Speed Ball in 1998, Chris Mears, the wife of four-time Indianapolis winner rick, was seated at dinner next to Tony Brooks. by the end of the evening, she was aware that brooks was a former Grand Prix driver, but this most self-effacing of men had told her little of his career. she wanted to know more, and spoke to mario Andretti.
'That guy,' said Mario, 'was the best of the best . . .'
#15
Barry Boor
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Posted 25 October 2005 - 21:48
I hope that Tony Brooks realises what extremely high esteem he is held in by so many people.
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Doug Nye
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Posted 27 October 2005 - 12:03
Quiet self-effacing blokes sharing quiet satisfaction on the 50th anniversary - R.M. Oliver, C.A.S. Brooks and families spent October 23 together...and looked back on the great day.
DCN
DCN
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Ruairidh
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Posted 27 October 2005 - 14:47
Originally posted by Barry Boor
I hope that Tony Brooks realises what extremely high esteem he is held in by so many people.
I agree.
#18
humphries
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Posted 28 October 2005 - 20:14
Just for the record I have had a look at the early race results for Tony Brooks and it appears that he competed in 39 races between 1952 and 1954. The total mileage for these races, somewhat regrettably, is well in excess of the miles Brooks completed in the 1955 Syracuse GP.
His first win came in a Goodwood handicap race (17/5/52) driving his Healey Silverstone and he had others (26/07/52 & 02/05/53) and one at Snetterton (01/08/53) but the handicappers did their job and despite some fastest laps he was prevented from having regular wins.
Along with the handicap wins in 1953, at Goodwood (12/9) Brooks also had his first "scratch" win driving D.Hely's Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica.
In 1954 he had two more wins with one-off drives. He won his class in the Silverstone Production Car race in C.W.Buckley's DKW and easily won a race for saloon cars at Aintree (02/10/54) in a Porsche 356 entered by W.H.Aldington. This race was run concurrently with a race for a motley collection of sports cars.
But it was with the Nash that he clearly demonstrated his ability by winning another Goodwood scratch race (27/03/54) beating Patrick Head's father, Michael, in his C-type Jaguar although Tony Crook, third in his potent Cooper-Bristol, believed he had been badly baulked by the Colonel.
Later in the season Tony came 2nd to Crook winding round the shrubbery at Crystal Palace (18/9/54) and beat the likes of Mike Keen in Alan Brown's Cooper-Bristol, Roy Salvadori in the Gilby Maserati A6GCS and Archie Scott-Brown in the works Lister-Bristol. A week later at Goodwood he galloped to 5th right behind Crook and Brown, now at the wheel of his Empire Trophy winning Cooper, and with Stirling Moss in the works Lister and the winner Salvadori only just a few seconds up the road. On paper a LM Replica should not have been able to mix it with the these sports-racers.
In 1955 Brooks did 3 British F1 races before Syracuse but he was only in an ex-F2 Connaught. Nonetheless only 250Fs, Schell's Vanwall, Fairman's Connaught B and Gerard's highly developed Cooper could beat him.
Somebody should be doing his biography.
Sorry for turning Mike's enjoyable wallow into a dull history lesson.
John
His first win came in a Goodwood handicap race (17/5/52) driving his Healey Silverstone and he had others (26/07/52 & 02/05/53) and one at Snetterton (01/08/53) but the handicappers did their job and despite some fastest laps he was prevented from having regular wins.
Along with the handicap wins in 1953, at Goodwood (12/9) Brooks also had his first "scratch" win driving D.Hely's Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica.
In 1954 he had two more wins with one-off drives. He won his class in the Silverstone Production Car race in C.W.Buckley's DKW and easily won a race for saloon cars at Aintree (02/10/54) in a Porsche 356 entered by W.H.Aldington. This race was run concurrently with a race for a motley collection of sports cars.
But it was with the Nash that he clearly demonstrated his ability by winning another Goodwood scratch race (27/03/54) beating Patrick Head's father, Michael, in his C-type Jaguar although Tony Crook, third in his potent Cooper-Bristol, believed he had been badly baulked by the Colonel.
Later in the season Tony came 2nd to Crook winding round the shrubbery at Crystal Palace (18/9/54) and beat the likes of Mike Keen in Alan Brown's Cooper-Bristol, Roy Salvadori in the Gilby Maserati A6GCS and Archie Scott-Brown in the works Lister-Bristol. A week later at Goodwood he galloped to 5th right behind Crook and Brown, now at the wheel of his Empire Trophy winning Cooper, and with Stirling Moss in the works Lister and the winner Salvadori only just a few seconds up the road. On paper a LM Replica should not have been able to mix it with the these sports-racers.
In 1955 Brooks did 3 British F1 races before Syracuse but he was only in an ex-F2 Connaught. Nonetheless only 250Fs, Schell's Vanwall, Fairman's Connaught B and Gerard's highly developed Cooper could beat him.
Somebody should be doing his biography.
Sorry for turning Mike's enjoyable wallow into a dull history lesson.
John
#19
D-Type
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Posted 29 October 2005 - 21:46
I found this in Denis Jenkinson's A story of Formula 1 in the chapter on "Transport"
Going back to bonde's original point: in another chapter "Supremacy of Britain" he devotes six pages to an article written for Motor Sport which starts
This explains why the cars were late and Tony Brooks had to learn the course on a hired Vespa, as he couldn't afford to hire a car.This was the sort of effort that Connaught had to put in to get to Syracuse for that great race of 1955. Mike Oliver was acting as team manager as well as chief engineer on that occasion, and he preceded the A.E.C. buses carrying the cars, driving his hot Ford Zephyr. They had unfortunately taken the mountain road to Sicily, not knowing any better, and at times Mike was having difficulty putting 22 miles into an hour's motoring, and he was naturally feeling pretty worried about the transporters that werre following the same route. In actual fact, what he did not know was that one of the buses was having its brakes re-lined in the middle of the high street of a mountain town, for they had been used up completely going through the mountains. As Mike said afterwards, "those A.E.C.s were definitely long-dogs, not made for corners or hills." That trip saw the mechanics eventually driving non-stop, there was no question of how many hours a day, it was just continual day and night. One team of mechanics summed up a trip to Sicily, the mountain route, by saying drily, "We took turns in driving - doing 12-hour shifts!"
Going back to bonde's original point: in another chapter "Supremacy of Britain" he devotes six pages to an article written for Motor Sport which starts
He goes on detailing various points and then he saysFor many years now I have stood on the edges of most of the european circuits watching Grand Prix racing and have had to spend a considerable time groaning inwardly, and often out wardly, atpathetic attempts being made by British cars and drivers in endeavour to become part of the Grand Prix circle. . .
Well, he (and we) had to wait 18 months until Aintree 1957As a climax to this most encouraging season of Grand Prix racing came the loudest cheer of all on a day that was pure history, a day that I sincerely hope is going to be the one by which we remember the beginning of an epoch. I refer, of course, to October 23rd 1955,when young C.A.S. Brooks, driving the Grand Prix Connaught entered by the factory, wiped the eye of of the entire Maserati team with no ifs, or buts, or qualifications. There were barely more than a dozen people from Great Britain present to see this great happening, but I am sure they will all remember that day with satisfaction.
However, I hope it is not going to be a case of remembering the day Britain won a Grand Prix; it has got to be 'the day Britain began to win Grand prix races.' . . .
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#21
Ray Bell
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Posted 23 March 2006 - 12:58
Surely this should say 'Brook'?
... or at least 'Bk'?
... or at least 'Bk'?
#22
Gary Davies
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Posted 23 March 2006 - 13:16
Now that's interesting, Ray. I'll assume that the camera is not fibbing in this instance. I wondered where 'Conaughtman Creek' might be so I nipped into that excellent government website Geoscience Australia <http://www.ga.gov.au/map/names/> and lo! there is no reference to anything Conaughtman. There is, however, 'Connaughtmans Creek' (with no apostrophe in Connaughtmans, as usual!) in New South Wales between Junee and Young. Is that your creek?
If the RTA have butchered the place name, this will come as no surprise. There are many road signs in and around the Barossa Valley in my home state of South Australia where it can easily be observed that the original iteration of the sign directed motorists to a town called Nurioopta!
If the RTA have butchered the place name, this will come as no surprise. There are many road signs in and around the Barossa Valley in my home state of South Australia where it can easily be observed that the original iteration of the sign directed motorists to a town called Nurioopta!
#23
Ray Bell
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Posted 23 March 2006 - 13:47
Between Young and Junee indeed... snapped at Wallendbeen in fact, about 25kms south of Young...
There's an interesting story about place names in New South Wales... I was told this early in my working life when I worked in the NSW Lands Department.
We had there a hand-compiled book of Geographical Place Names in NSW. As you can guess, there are literally hundreds of Sandy Creeks and Rocky Creeks.
Seems there was a guy who worked there in the thirties or forties who came to work early each day and took a Parish map and simply wrote down all the names he found on it. They were catalogued in time and so was born the book of which I speak. I daresay that forms a part of the basis of the site you cite.
All done voluntarily, IIRC...
There's an interesting story about place names in New South Wales... I was told this early in my working life when I worked in the NSW Lands Department.
We had there a hand-compiled book of Geographical Place Names in NSW. As you can guess, there are literally hundreds of Sandy Creeks and Rocky Creeks.
Seems there was a guy who worked there in the thirties or forties who came to work early each day and took a Parish map and simply wrote down all the names he found on it. They were catalogued in time and so was born the book of which I speak. I daresay that forms a part of the basis of the site you cite.
All done voluntarily, IIRC...
