Goodwood Circuit Revival 1999

The Goodwood organisers had assembled a very fine selection of single seater racing cars for the weekend in the 1952 to 1961 age range.

The Woodcote Cup race included front-engined Formual One, Two and Formula Libre cars of the type which would have raced between 1952 and 1955. This pulled in the various pre-war E.R.A.s which where still going strong at that time, Ludovic Lindsay electing to race Bira's Remus, E.R.A. R5B and Martin Stretton the slightly earlier 1935 car R4D.

Naturally there were Connaughts and Cooper Bristols aplenty, the 1952 Alta F2/5 and several Maserati 250Fs.

Vandervell's Ferrari-derived Thin Wall Special appeared in the hands of Rob Hall and we were also treated to two awesome V16 1953 P30 Mk2 B.R.M.s. Hear one and die - if they last long enough that is. Nick Mason's true to form didn't. If you want to know why try buying his excellent book 'Into The Red'. Rick Hall did well to bring Tom Wheatcroft's Donington Collection car home in 13th place.

Three Walton on Thames made H.W.M.s were on display, the Kirkland Ryland Jaguar powered car doing well to come home 12th, but sadly the other two Alta powered models  failing to finish.

Hitting heavier were the Richmond and Gordon Trophies cars, a mixture of front and rear engined cars which were racing between 1957 and 1961. Here were the allegedly more robust B.R.M. 25s, one of which in the hands of John Harper won the race 27 seconds ahead of Derek Bell's Cooper T51 Maserati, again Maserati 250Fs in force and six Cooper Climaxes.

The wonderfully evocative Aston Martin DBR4 made an appearance and qualified 12th (see the photograph in our Paddock section) but expired, as did the beautiful Costin-bodied Vanwall and two Lotus 16 Climaxes.