Event Information

Race Results

DATE	DESCRIPTION	RACE RESULTS
April 25th, 2009	HGPCA Race for Pre ’66 GP Cars

Race Report

The Association’s annual Test Day at Silverstone had been arranged for the Thursday prior to the VSCC Itala Trophy meeting at which the HGPCA were providing a grid of pre 1966 cars. The race had been planned for ’rear-engine’cars, however, with 30 allowed on the grid and only 25 of these later cars practising, two Cooper Bristols were accepted in the race. Both vehicle, mechanical and driver medical problems had caused a number of possible entrants to withdraw prior to practice! It was raining at 9am on race day but by the time our practice started at 11.30, the sun was out and the track almost dry.

Immediately quickest out of the box was John Harper in the Tasman Brabham; Will Schryver in the Lotus then posted fastest lap but, by half way through the session, Mark Piercy led the times and then John Clark was the leader. Five minutes before the flag, Rod Jolley led only to have to take avoiding action when approaching much slower cars and ending up in the gravel. On his very last lap Mark piped John Harper by a quarter of a second to lead with John Clark third, Rod fourth and Nigel Bancroft, nursing a mal-functioning gearbox, fifth. Fastest class 9 car was Andrew Smith in tenth place but star of the show was Doug Mockett in his 1.5 litre Cooper in eighth place. Unfortunately Peter Horsman collected the barriers exiting Becketts and was not able to start in the race.

25 cars lined up in the assembly area for the race. It was pointed out to Eddie McGuire that his helper, by mistake, had fitted his tyres the wrong way around - the smaller on the back rather than the front - it was too late to make any changes and judging by the race lap times, it did not seem to matter too much! We had a spinner on lap one, Richard Waring in his first race with the HGPCA and his Brabham found Luffield corner more slippery that he expected. At the end of the lap Mark Piercy led, with John Harper second, John Clark third, Nick Wigley fourth followed by Rod Jolley. Will Schryver had a coming together with another car which released the bonnet catch allowing it to rear up in the wind and causing his retirement. Lap three and Harper’s Brabham was back in the lead but Mark soon re-established himself out front. The race looked set into a pattern but then the Mark’s Cooper started to lose water and a subsequent spin dropped him back to fourth place. Harper took the chequered flag in first place with an epic battle between John Clark and Nick Wigley for second place. John led until the penultimate lap when Nick passed him to lead John by less than half a second over the line.

At the prize-giving following the race, champagne was awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each class; the presentations were made by Peter Wallman from RM auctions. The ’driver of the day’ award was presented by Debbie Phillpotts from Arbuthnot Latham Bank to Mark Bussey. Mark, driving his 1.5 litre single cam Cooper T43, had excelled himself leading a number of younger and larger capacity cars to the flag.

A special thanks to Wendy and Bob Beever who supplied a super lunch to all on Saturday; not only to the competitors in the HGPCA race but also to all the other members who were at the race meeting taking part in the VSCC races. It was their first time catering for us – it was excellent and we look forward to the next time (at Brands).