27 replies to this topic

[Willythekid]

I found (and joined)  this website the other day after my wife and I were talking about " I wonder what happened to...?"  We typed in the name of Roger Taylor and were dismayed to find out that  we believe he passed away in the 1980's ..there was an obituary.. It was bad enough to lose touch with such people but awful to not realise for 30+ years of what happened to them .   Can someone please give more details...

 Briefly, I am now in my mid sixties, and living in Cheshire, work three days a week as a a third party certification systems auditor, I also wrote a book last year.. (see www.davidsbookofnonsense.com). 

  I helped out with the East Anglia Racing team cars based in Dagenham in the Alan Peer, Roger Taylor, Bert Avard etc days... this would be late 1960's/ early 1970.    With the team we travelled round the various circuits and I well remember lying on soggy wet grass, say at Croft or Oulton Park changing a diff' for one whose ratio  suited the circuit ..Great and happy days.. .I found some info via this Autosport and the names of the day (drivers and teams) in the club/modified saloons came flooding back..sheer nostaligia.. 

If anyone can add details of what actually happened with Roger and others and wish to take up this topic of that era I would be very interested to know, or indeed anyone connected with club racing in those days..

My involvement since those days is relegated to watching F1 on TV , but having said that my wife is a big fan of F1 and motor racing generally and we hope to go to this years Spanish GP.  Since those boy racer days of modified MK1 Ford Cortinas, I take pride that I'm a sedate old git who has swopped speed and a wood rim steering wheel  for a 3 cyl  1000 cc Ford Fiesta where fuel economy is the order of the day!!  (mind you it is a quite respectable 100 bhp)  ..David W

Edited by Willythekid, 09 March 2014 - 16:03.

[pete53]

I remember seeing an obituary for Alan Peer some years ago, so he is no longer with us. As you know Roger Taylor is no longer with us either - as you probably learned from the obituary he died in a road accident abroad.

[Tim Murray]

If you haven't found it already, David, this earlier thread on Roger may be of interest:

 

Roger Taylor

 

 

 

[DouglasM]

Roger Taylor, a great guy!

 

[Dave French]

Willy, I also worked on Rogers Escorts (blue Dagenham Motors car and white and red arrow  RT autofactors car). If you email me at Dave.Fishing@btinternet.com I can give you some info but not a huge amount. Nags Head days and what I know at this time. 

[Bloggsworth]

Boley Pittard who tragically died in a Monza start line accident when he moved from saloon cars to F3. The one who stuck out for me was Zakia Rejep, the only Turkish racing driver around at the time; not successful, but at least he was trying.

[Dave French]

Zac Rejep I am informed by his old mechanic a couple of years ago, is retired and living  in Cyprus.

[bobwilcox]

I too worked with East Anglian Racing from 1965 to 1968 and at odd times. I worked on Alan Peer's 1000cc Cosworth in national completion, (I still have the BRSCC trophy he won. I went all over England with Roger Taylor and worked on Brian Keens 1300 twin cam. Brian unfortunately got killed on the way to my 21st birthday. I helped Bert Avard in his shed building engines and was lucky enough to escort Bert to BRM, Cosworth, and other race/rally teams and met several famous drivers of the 60's. I worked alongside a guy named Jeff from Yorkshire, Whitby I think who was an engineer at Fords.

I went off to work on Tony Lanfrachi's Merlin F3 Car for part of 68 season around Europe and then with P&M Racing from Chiswick Arches working on Brabhams.

It was a wonderful time of gentlemen racers, enthusiastic mechanics working for nothing but the fun. I miss those days but would not fancy being involved in todays hi-powered, money related racing. (bobwilcox@hotmail.co.uk)

[sterling49]

I used to watch most of the names mentioned above, Zak Redjep could win the odd race, but Peer and Taylor usuall won their respective races by some distance. Big Tone was a class act and could win in most things, but loved the F3 Merlyn that he drove to some great wins with his distinctive Crash Helmet, painted in many colours. Great days, it doesn't seem too far back..until you start calculating the years and work out one's age !

[bradbury west]

I always understood that Mr Redjep was a Cypriot fruit importer in Covent Garden then the new Nine Elms market, henced his place of retirement.

Roger Lund

[kartman24]

My father Frank Collins bought the British Saloon car championship winning ex Alan Peer Anglia in the 70`s. He bought it from Westune Racing in Bolton, John Myerscough had raced the car for them I think with a BDA or something similar, the car was in special Saloon type spec by then with bubble arches and a one piece flip front, every panel has a section removed and an ally panel riveted in to lighten it. The car came minus engine and my father bought  a 1558 Race Twin Cam in that came from John Green at Daren Racing cars, he used it with success in club racing and sprints..............Martin Collins

[DogEarred]

And I seem to remember Roger Williamson winning there a couple of times too.

[DogEarred]

Somebody will identify these poor Instamatic snaps, won't they?...

 

 

 

 

 

[sterling49]

Mike Beckwith in the Willment Escort Twin Cam and, I think, John Fitzpatrick and Chris Craft in the Broadspeed 1300 GTs , this would have been an International meeting probably, like the Motor Show 200 in the Autumn.

Edited by sterling49, 10 May 2014 - 15:51.

[pete53]

Mike Beckwith in the Willment Escort Twin Cam and, I think, John Fitzpatrick and Chris Craft in the Broadspeed 1300 GTs , this would have been an International meeting probably, like the Motor Show 200 in the Autumn.

In fact it is Mike Crabtree in the Willment Escort and Fitzpatrick in no. 24 Escort and Craft in 25. You are quite right - it is the Motor Show 200 (1968). Frank Gardner was the outright winner in the Alan Mann Escort. Yes, that quality of light immediately tells you it is autumn.

[sterling49]

Of course, I meant Crabtree, I made the same mistake last week too! The autumn colours at Brands were always magnificent, and when MN started printing colour phots in 1968 (this race) the front page phota of Gardner entering Druids was a joy to behold.

[DogEarred]

Yes, It was indeed the event you mention. It was the first year that I started to attend races. The smell of the cut grass, soft sunlight, burning rubber & hot oil, as you describe, did have an effect on me.

Was it this meeting, where Ron Fry hit the bank & turned over at Clearways, in a Ford GT40, happily uninjured?

Sounds like you guys have very good memories.

Brilliant saloon car races & F3, FF1600 also, if I recall?

[pete53]

Yes, It was indeed the event you mention. It was the first year that I started to attend races. The smell of the cut grass, soft sunlight, burning rubber & hot oil, as you describe, did have an effect on me.

Was it this meeting, where Ron Fry hit the bank & turned over at Clearways, in a Ford GT40, happily uninjured?

Sounds like you guys have very good memories.

Brilliant saloon car races & F3, FF1600 also, if I recall?

Ron Fry's shunt was a couple of months earlier during the Guards Trophy August Bank Holiday race.

 

The Motor Show 200 meetings between 1967-1970 featured a 50 lap Saloon race, which constituted the final round of the British Saloon Car Championship. Formula 3 supported the main event and a very good field of international entries was always attracted to Brands. Various other support races also featured on different occasions - Historics, Special Sports (marque) and Formula Ford. Always a very enjoyable way to end the season and I was fortunate enough to attend all of those events.

[ron54]

Ron Fry's shunt was a couple of months earlier during the Guards Trophy August Bank Holiday race.
 
The Motor Show 200 meetings between 1967-1970 featured a 50 lap Saloon race, which constituted the final round of the British Saloon Car Championship. Formula 3 supported the main event and a very good field of international entries was always attracted to Brands. Various other support races also featured on different occasions - Historics, Special Sports (marque) and Formula Ford. Always a very enjoyable way to end the season and I was fortunate enough to attend all of those events.

Sept'68 due to a poorly tightened rear o/s wheel spinner, Ron lost the wheel on the entry into clearways.
The car flipped fortunately without injury to the pilot.The journey back home to Bath was a bit quite I suspect.

Ron Fry also had the ex-Broadspeed Anglia (the Anita Taylor car?)

[sterling49]

ron54, the registration number that Ron had on the GT40 and the previous Ferrari, which I have a grainy photo of somewhere, I was at Brands the day Ron went off at Clearways.

[DogEarred]

Ron Fry's car hit the bank right in front of me. It was the first big accident I had seen.

The couple of pictures I took afterwards are long since lost.

Interesting to learn the cause after all these years!

Thanks Chaps.

[pete53]

Ron Fry also had the ex-Broadspeed Anglia (the Anita Taylor car?)

Yes it was a Broadspeed prepared car, and he raced it during 1967, although I am not sure of its lineage. Anita Taylor rolled her car at the October 1966 Brands meeting although I don't think it was too badly damaged, for, as rolls go,  it was a fairly modest one, so it could well have been repaired and sold on.

 

In the meantime I have been thinking of some other Anglia/Escort pilots of the mid to late 1960s. If my list is a bit "south-centric" I apologise but that is where I was watching my racing in those days.

 

As a spectator at Brands the likes of Pat Mannion, David Garrett, Brian Peacock, Rod Mansfield and the aforementioned Alan Peer, Roger Taylor and Zak Redjep, were all frequent contestants. Also worthy of a mention is Tony Roberts and his spotty Anglia, as is Reg Gubbings and his Buick powered car. As the decade moved on the likes of John Myerscough, Graham Bean, George Whitehead and Mick Hill (Jag engined) were all still making Anglias go very quickly. Also, we shouldn't forget those who raced the smaller 1 litre engined versions successfully - Alan Peer, Gerry Edmonds, Laurie Hickman and, by the end of this period,  Roger Williamson.

 

The Escorts were quite slow to filter into club racing. Roger Taylor was, of course, a familiar sight in 1968, in his Escort. By 1969 John Bloomfied had joined in as had Bob Torrie, Tony Sugden and Gerry Birrell. I also recall rally man Hannu Mikkola doing some circuit racing in an Escort (1969?).

[foxyracer]

We shouldn't forget Terry McNally from Leicester.  He was a bit of a Mallory and Silverstone specialist but did occasionally venture as far south as Brands. He won a lot of races and also the Hepolite-Glacier title in the early 1970s and then retired. 

[kartman24]

Which one of the aforementioned Anglia drivers ran the Purple People Eater?............Martin

[Schmitt]

I vaguely remember seeing Martin Maudling, son of Reggie, crashing his Anglia at Paddock in the 1960's.  If I am correct does anyone know the year?

[pete53]

Which one of the aforementioned Anglia drivers ran the Purple People Eater?............Martin

None of those Martin , I believe that was Les Nash, indeed another Anglia stalwart.

Edited by pete53, 12 May 2014 - 14:43.

[sterling49]

I vaguely remember seeing Martin Maudling, son of Reggie, crashing his Anglia at Paddock in the 1960's.  If I am correct does anyone know the year?

If my memory is working properly, it was around 1965/66 I think it was the accident at Paddock that involved Richard Sandilands in the Standard 10 ( yes..you did read that correctly!)

Edited to add Ken Dawes of Dawes of Swanley fame, and Tony Roberts in Spotty Muldoon iirc.......

Edited by sterling49, 12 May 2014 - 15:29.

[bradbury west]

If you check the Snetterton photo thread, I cannot do a link under the new system, there is a photograph from Andrew Kitson showing the Maudling Anglia, as his father was involved with the car, IIRC
Roger Lund

BTW don't forget that we had a good selection of large engined Anglias on the Northern circuits too,
Peter Dalkin, ISTR, in his Perdal Developments car, one of the earliest to bore out to 1650cc, always a regular at Rufforth, of fond memory