Colin Chapman’s Lotus marque, immortalised as winner of Brands Hatch’s first British Grand Prix in 1964 with Jim Clark and subsequent world championship counters with Jo Siffert (1968), Jochen Rindt (1970) and Emerson Fittipaldi (1972), took centre stage anew at the Kentish venue last weekend.
Wonderful victories for Enrico Spaggiari - mirroring John Miles’ 1968 win in the unique Formula 3 41X - and Guards Trophy giant-slayer Andrew Hibberd driving an equally pristine 23B sportscar, plus a parade of eight Formula Ford 51’s at the category’s 1967 birthplace, highlighted the annual HSCC Superprix.
International competitors comprised half the 1000cc F3 field. Saturday’s opener finished behind a safety car - for the recovery of Tony Wallen’s ex-Carlos Pace Lotus 59A - Frenchman Ludo Ingwiller’s Pygmee having suffered a suspension failure in the crocodile.
Poleman Pete de la Roche (ex-Ken Sedgley Alexis Mk17) lapped 0.7s quicker to beat Ayrton Senna’s 1983 F3 contemporary Richard Trott (ex-Erkki Salminen Brabham BT28) and Jason Timms (BT21). Ross Drybrough (ex-Patrick Champin Merlyn Mk14A) and Spaggiari in the Gold Leaf Team Lotus finished close behind.
But 47 years bar a week after John Miles beat a quality field to win the Clearways Trophy here, the dashing gentleman racer from Verona seized his opportunity on Sunday. Enrico calmly outran Trott - who improved fastest lap to 1m37.555s - and de la Roche to the chequered flag. Ecstatic, it was his steed’s first outright win since Miles’ Lombank Trophy Formule Libre race at Ingliston, Edinburgh, in October 1968.
Guards Trophy champions Rob and Ben Tusting's all-conquering Lenham broke in qualifying, but Hibberd’s speed and supreme consistency emphatically netted gold in Sunday’s 50 minute enduro.
Spectators enjoyed 1983 FF Champion of Brands Karl Jones' squabble with a trio of Chevron-BMW B8s aboard Chris Wilson’s Val Dare-Bryan designed Attilla-Chevrolet Mk3, a period Guards race entrant.
Charlie Allison (B8), who survived an early scrape with Daniel Pickett (Chevron-BMW B16), was second. Pickett relayed Dan Eagling who hounded Jones down, snatching third into Paddock on the final lap.
The HGPCA races revisited the birth of the GP circuit in August 1960, when world champion Jack Brabham won the Silver City Trophy race in his factory Cooper T53. Appropriately an ex-Brabham T53 won both encounters, with Rudi Friedrichs up.
The German shrugged off Tom Waterfield (T53) and Tim Child (ex-Brabham/Graham Hill Scuderia Veloce Tasman Brabham BT3/4) on Saturday. Mark Shaw’s ex-Jim Clark Lotus 21 was fourth and first 1500cc finisher.
Sunday’s return featured Child relieve Friedrichs of the lead audaciously into Paddock - with two wheels on the grass! - the duo having passed Geraint Owen’s bellowing Kurtis-Offenhauser Indycar on either side into the braking area. Friedrichs cut back inside Child moments later.
Peter Horsman (ex-Tony Shelly Lotus 18/21) ousted Shaw from third, leaving the Scot to repel James Denty’s sister 21. Welshman Owen and Belgian Paul Grant (Cooper-Bristol) headed the front-engined finishers again.
With 2023 Lurani Trophy champion Horatio Fitz-Simon’s ex-Paul Hawkins Brabham BT6 hobbled by a misfire, top qualifier Callum Grant (Merlyn Mk5/7) was invincible in the FJHRA’s 30th anniversary season. Stuart Roach (Alexis Mk4) and Richard Wilson (Lotus 27) completed both podiums.
Saturday’s race was red flagged with front-engined pacemaker Adrian Russell’s Condor in the kitty litter at Westfield, Sunday’s bisected by a caution with Mark Shaw’s Brabham stuck at Stirlings.
Amid the glimpses into single-seater racing history, Saturday’s solus HSCC Road Sports encounter, embroiling the 70s and Historic championships, was a stunner.
Having stalked leader John Williams (Porsche 911SC) for several laps, with Frazer Gibney (Lotus Elan), Martin Pratt (Morgan +8) and Mark Godfrey (Lotus 7) closing in, Antony Ross (TVR 3000M) grabbed the lead into Druids with wheels on the grass. It didn’t stick initially, but Ross persisted and howled clear of Historic battlers Gibney and Godfrey as Williams faded.
George Daws (Datsun 240Z) bagged fifth from Pratt, pursued by Sam Garland in another Morgan. Porsche 924 pilots did not have a 70s class monopoly, for feisty Italian visitor Gianluca Bardelli split Simon Baines and Peter Hore in an unusual Lotus Eclat.
When Historic FF1600 poleman Benn Simms missed a gear and parked his Jomo JMR7 at the pit exit, its engine blown, after a lap, it looked wide open. At least behind another past champion Sam Mitchell (Merlyn Mk20), whose large leads over jostling pelotons were annulled by safety cars.
Mitchell shaded the Kent-built cars of Danny Stanzl (Elden Mk8), Ben Powney and Will Nuthall (Jamun T3 and T2) after engine failure stranded Greville Ball’s Caldwell at Druids on day one. Sunday’s sequel finished under yellows with Nick Sheppard’s Merlyn beached at the foot of Paddock Hill Bend.
The Classic FF rounds were similarly encumbered for cars off in dangerous positions. After his advantages were expunged, double champion Jordan Harrison (Lola T540E) won both from Swiss Gislain Genecand (Crossle 16F).
Following carb dramas which left him completing only one qualifying lap, Rick Morris, 78, charged his Royale RP29 from the back to third on Sat-urday. Oliver Chapman (Lola T200) was third, ahead of Morris and Tom Gadd (Van Diemen RF81) on countback when Sunday’s race was red flagged with Freddie Lillingston-Price’s Merlyn in the wall at the hairpin.
March-mounted Mark Dwyer (F2 742) and Marc Mercer (ex-Bill Brack Atlantic 78B) dominated the Derek Bell Trophy races, winning one apiece. Mercer screamed ahead from the start on Sunday, but having ceded to Dwyer’s lighter and more powerful car saw his rival career into the Westfield gravel bed.
Paul Campfield (ex-Skeeter McKitterick F5000 Chevron B24) and Ben Stiles (ex-Ted Wentz F2 Lola T360B) reprised Saturday’s chase battle. Stiles twice rounded the V8 monster at Druids, before another of the safety car interventions which kept veteran driver Chris Alford busy, cemented a gallant second.
A touch between Historic FF2000 title protagonists Ben Glasswell and Graham Fennymore sent the latter spinning on the climb from Surtees, but the double champion crafted a fine recovery drive and, aided by a caution, reclaimed second.
Fennymore controlled race two, but couldn’t shake Glasswell. Behind the fleeing Reynards, Benn Tilley (Delta T79) and Greg Robertson (Reynard) shared thirds and fourths, but bad vibrations under braking forced 1979 European champion Adrian Reynard to retire from the second stanza.
The 750MC’s Radical Club Challenge filled the programme. Shane Stoney blitzed both races, his 1m25.675s (102.24mph) best lap in a Suzuki Hayabusa-powered PR6 two seconds inside Dwyer’s DBT standard in a 1974 spec F2 car.
