After the enforced cancellation of the winter Trials programme due to foot-and-mouth disease precautions, it was 'back to normal' for the VSCC when it welcomed back its members to its traditional April Silverstone fixture (after moving back to March in 2000, occasioned by the shuffling of the British GP date) and, for once, the sun seemed to be shining on the righteous - although shirt-sleeve weather it was not.

It has yet to transpire whether Silverstone will be hosting VSCC events in 2002 as the new circuit lessee, Octagon, have abandoned the old arrangements for circuit hire, when the club took a share of the gate receipts, and now charge a straight hire fee. Historically Silverstone always attracted the largest VSCC race crowds and this loss of revenue, coupled with the increased hire charges, may well see the events being economically unsustainable to the club. In which case, no one will be able to approach the golden anniversary record set by Frank Tiedeman, who ran the same Austin 7 Ulster in the High Speed Trial (and qualified!) that he ran at VSCC Silverstone in June 1951 !

For those not at Brands Hatch the weekend before, there were a number of new car/driver combinations as a result of close-season deals; Spencer Flack having more luck than at Brands with his ex-Rothschild BRM P25, appropriately taking the Rothschild Trophy. Pole-man Andrew Smith led initially with his Cooper T43, and although passed by the BRM at half-distance, pressed hard to the flag, failing by only half a length. Tania Pilkington continued her impressive recent form with her similar Cooper, coping with an excessive dose of wheel-patter but still managing to take third and beating John Harper, debuting a T45 Cooper, into fourth. Michael Steele, who may have offered some challenge, failed to start his Type C Connaught on the grid and was wheeled away only to find it started first time back in the paddock.

<<< Sadly, Seb Welch was a non-starter and will have to wait before he joins the Cooper T43 club, keen to exercise his ex-Ted Rollason example but thwarted by a damaged tendon in his wrist but he was looking forward to being ready for Donington. It was odd to see the ex-Bob Gerard Cooper Bristol in the paddock, so familiar for so many years in the hands of Graham Burrows, with its new owner, Max Wilson but, unfortunately, it was a non-starter.

Best race of the day came in the Patrick Lindsay Trophy where a three car battle for the lead held the crowd's attention. Mac Hulbert, having his first race in the ex-Michael Steele ERA R4D led away chased by Ludovic Lindsay (ERA Remus) and John Ure in Peter Mann's ERA R9B. With the three locked together, Ure fought his way past, his 1 ½ litres giving nothing away to his 2 litre rivals only to slow with a couple of laps remaining when the gear selector broke leaving him stuck in third gear. Hulbert took victory by a scant 0.15 seconds from Ludovic with John holding on in third, some way clear of the fourth place battle where Charles Dean manfully worked his Type 51 Bugatti through from seventh on the opening lap to head home Duncan Ricketts, who was having gear selection problems with the E type ERA, and Tony Stephens (ERA R12B). Sean Danaher, with a day off from tending his customers, gave his superbly-presented ex-Falchetto/Sofietti Maserati 8CM its first British race outing and enjoyed a sporting dice with Richard Last's ex-Parnell K3 MG

.

Elsewhere, Nick Rossi had decided that one car wasn't giving him enough headaches so has added his very attractive Alfa 1750 GS to his Jaguar C type équipe to give him a flavour of pre-war racing and completed the Itala Trophy without mishap which, hopefully, augurs well for the future.. Also out in the Itala was Hubert Fabri's Type 35C Bugatti, recently discovered in Italy where it has lived since 1930 and, although mechanically refurbished by Tim Dutton, retains its wonderful 'barn-find' patina, with its dull and slightly peeling red paintwork revealing patches of original Bugatti blue beneath. It was a genuine crowd-pleaser, and performed well into the bargain.

Yet another April Silverstone over, and an enjoyable meeting with some excellent racing to entertain what looked like a relatively small crowd. It is to be hoped that the combined VSCC/HGPCA initiative at Donington for the Richard Seaman Trophy meeting, where Audi are giving considerable support, will prove more popular at the turnstiles.

A.S.D.C.

The VSCC's final race meeting of the year was the traditional June Hawthorn Trophies event, now, seemingly, an August fixture, and in spite of the major counter-attraction of Nürburgring's Oldtimer Festival, managed to attract the best of the entry, possibly encouraged by a one-off all-Cooper race to honour the late John Cooper, who died on Christmas Eve last year.

The club's competition department at Chipping Norton had garnered a varied entry of single-seaters and sports-racers for the event, many of which featured in a representative display of Cooper history in the paddock, along with a number of employees and team mechanics from the Surbition factory, as well as Cooper's son Mike. Included in the feature was Charles Cooper's first special, built for son John and based on an Austin Seven (what else?) recently discovered and rebuilt by David Morgan, displayed alongside Cooper stalwart Bruce McLaren's first racing car, another Austin Seven which appeared courtesy of Ron Dennis.

The well-supported 1950's Sports Car race produced an excellent battle for lead honours between Julian Bronson (Lister-Chevy) and Frank Sytner (Cooper Monaco), making his first VSCC appearance for some years, with Bronson coolly slipping past Sytner to take the lead on the opening lap into Brooklands and holding it for 11 of the 12 laps as each driver explored (and found) the limits of adhesion on the damp track. However, Sytner spoilt the entertainment by going for an impossible gap as they entered Luffield for the last time, having to lean on the hapless Bronson to scrub off speed and prompting the Lister into a spin. Sytner took the flag from a fuming Bronson, from John Harper's Monaco as a chastened Frank returned to the paddock.

TOPS member Charlie Dean continued excellent recent form to take his second successive win in the Boulogne Trophy race for pre-1934 cars with his faithful black Bugatti 51, beating Tim Llewellyn's 3/8 Bentley fair and square, with Gary Caroline's Morgan a distant third.

Buoyed by his earlier victory, Dean took on the pre-1961 single-seater field in the Hawthorn Trophies race, 1932 technology giving a good account against Maserati 250F and Cooper Bristol, such that he held a strong second place for some time behind eventual winner John Ure, with Peter Mann's ERA R9B, and managing to hold off Nick Mason's 250F until the closing stages before settling for third. Robin Lodge made his VSCC debut with his Lancia D50 (tested on Friday by Richard P), the glorious wail of its V8 drowning out all-comers on its way to seventh. An interesting debutant came in the shape of David Bennett's Maserati A6GCM, an interesting interim 2-litre car fitted with a 2½-litre 250F engine from 1953/4. David is more usually seen driving his Aston DB3S and DB4s at AMOC and BRDC meetings.

Frank Sytner returned to the fray in the Cooper race with John Coombs' lowline T53 and looked to be a safe bet for victory, provided he kept out of everyone's way, and carved an early lead, chased hard by Rod Jolley with his earlier T45/51 but a determined last-lap charge around the outside of Woodcote, using extensive areas of grass verge, caught Frank napping and took the flag by a scant 4/100ths of a second to the delight of the crowd. Harper took another third with his T51 followed by Bronson in Harper's T45. Tania P's efforts in pursuit of Barry Cannell's T53 came to a premature halt from 9^th place when her T43's throttle cable gave out after 7 laps leaving the place to Steve Smith's T59 FJ version, from Seb Welch's T45.

So the VSCC's 2001 racing season closed, a well-supported meeting producing some good, close (sometimes too close) racing, with the longest standing supporters and promoters of Vintage and Historic racing looking hard at ways to produce attractive racing programmes, which is essential in order to attract the paying public in the face of ever-rising circuit costs.

A.S.D.C.

I think by now readers may have realised that Trisha’s latest ploy in the search for new contributors is to overuse one to the extent that someone else picks up the pen in self defence. Mind you it could have been worse as I had been going to do Pau and Le Mans as well, (or should that be as badly, for the sake of modesty?) until a bit of desk research revealed that reports had already been published. Take heart all you would- be reporters, there can be few amongst you that pay so little attention to what others are doing at meetings, nor any that are likely to spend any longer at the family computer typing it out with two fingers. Your club needs you!

Once more the Curtis family (yes all four again) set out from the western fringe of Somerset and this time we took the Nash and the HWM, both for the new drum brake race being organised by Sheridan Thynne in conjunction with the HGPCA. The draw for the family this time was our super farmhouse digs in Adstone, which we were introduced to by Humphrey Avon, and where we have been staying over the last ten years.

It has to be said that Silverstone itself is getting less of a draw each year. I know one shouldn’t look back too wistfully at the old cinder paddock with the green oil drums with your competition number on them for your ‘spot', the wide open spaces of old runways, views of the track, easy access to the primitive pits, large areas of grassy fields and of course the primitive loos. On the other hand the huge building programmes, the restrictions to access and viewing, and the alterations to the circuit already and in the future have not made it a more appealing place to race at.

Having said all that we will still probably go there until the last blade of grass disappears or Octagon turns into Octopus and strangles us with all of its many tentacles.

The drivers are now part of the show, and are asked in return for their free grub, if they can walk the mile to the tent to get it, to remain in their sweaty overalls all day so that the sponsors and their guests get a buzz (or should that be hum). The grub was actually quite good, but the so called village was pretty big so that with the low numbers of people that got to it whether on foot or by shuttle in American presidential style golf carts the place was totally lacking in atmosphere, even for the welcome party. There might have been more people there but for a fairly efficient pass system and the fact that extra tickets for your family or mechanics cost £169 per person per day! Come to think of it no-one actually said welcome. In fact the most welcoming person was the man who arranged to have your trailer taken away from the paddock by quad bike and parked in the nether regions of the interior. I wonder if we had not sneaked off early after our race on Sunday whether they would have brought it back? Mind you having practised on Friday and having nothing to do on Saturday, it was a bit much to expect us to remain there all day Monday, for the benefit of the crowds who might or might not still have wanted to give our cars a gawp.

Thank you for reminding me, I suppose I ought to tell you a little about the racing. I have been trying to get David Morris to have a race in the HWM for some time but his work, family holidays etc. have prevented it up to now so I was delighted when this time he made it to the grid not only as a thank you for all the mechanical holes he has dug me out of, but also as I was really interested to see how he would go in it and to see if he would suggest any improvements.

In practice David was 5^th fastest behind Stretton and von Schenk in their 300S s, Richard Wills in his Lola and Olly Crosthwaite in a Cooper Bobtail. After the first practice I was only saved from being last by courtesy of Sally Mason Styrron and as there were several other Nashes entered I thought I’d better try a bit harder in the second practice or wear the dunce’s hat. I managed to save some 12" so this improved my place on the grid although Chris Wilson did such a brilliant start from just behind me that it took me several laps to get by, he really made me work for it. When I had got by I observed a fairly lurid battle in my mirror between Michael Parr and Chris which ended up with Michael overtaking both of us in the complex . Soon after that his car took control of him and he spun out of contention.

Whilst I had been enjoying my own little struggle the MEN at the front began to start lapping us. Naturally I had a keen interest to see where David would be. I was not surprised when Stretton went by, nor von Schenk, but was to see Carlos Monteverdi in his yellow Testa Rossa, bits of which I had seen strewn across the road in the complex. Not long after that David went by with great politeness in my HWM and indeed this was the order in which they finished. It was not until later that I observed Susie standing in front of the HWM’s newly buckled rear wing in the paddock that I discovered that David had been 3^rd when Burkhard got a little out of shape and that whilst taking avoiding action David spun backwards on an oily bit of track and, ( as Gerard Hoffnung said about the barrel), met Carlos going the other way. Carlos was absolutely OK about the incident, and his mechanics confided to us that they had a new body ready but fortunately they hadn’t had time to fit it before the meeting!

As far as the Frazer Nash race was concerned they were distributed about the field according to their specification or driver ability. Frank Sytner was 9^th, Ian Nuthall was fairly close behind in 11^th place in the Sebring, and Alex Boswell was 19^th in his Mille Miglia still (like Parr) complaining of evil handling. After them came Champion 23rd, me 25^th, Chris 27^th and Michael 28th.

All in all a good race and unlike the Ring there was not a disc brake in sight. There is talk of a small series of similar races at home and abroad which is something to look forward to in 2002. What did David think of the car? Well he would be prepared to have another go, but thinks a little attention to the brakes would not come amiss. He tells me it is sub-optimal when the middle pedal goes to the floor for no apparent reason and then recovers. Oddly enough that’s just what James said, undoubtedly they must press all the pedals harder than I do—it must be nice to be young and fearless!

What happened in the other races, sorry you’ll have to read the mags and look at these pictures from Richard Hampson www.hamps-historics.co.uk

<><>

<>