HSCC Silverstone Historic Tribute 6th June 2004

Round Five AMOC Formula Junior Championship

The eleven thirty start time of the Qualifying session saw forty two cars facing the timekeepers, to fill the thirty eight places available on the grid for what was to be the last race of the day, the weather was fine and sunny and seemed pretty settled. The Silverstone International Circuit was being used so it was hard to anticipate what sort of times the leading cars were likely to achieve in this session. The qualifying soon turned into a tussle for pole, as widely anticipated, between F J regular front runner Edwin Jowsey Lotus 22 and Simon Hadfield guest driver of the Birrell Brabham BT6, this continued right through the fifteen minutes allowed with first one and then the other setting a new lower lap time as the benchmark, close to these two were Simon Armer in his much improved Cooper T59, and Mark Woodhouse very consistent in his Lotus 20/22, Derek Walker Terrier Mk1V was setting the pace for the front engined runners, right behind him Charles Jones Cooper T56 was leading the class B runners, their times (due to the keen contest for pole) were much further from the front runners times than has been the case elsewhere this year.

Pole position after ten laps finally went to Simon Hadfield Brabham BT6 with a time of 1.37.347, Edwin Jowsey's Lotus 22 recorded a time of 1.38.015, a creditable third was Simon Armer in his Cooper T59 with 1.39.637, Mark Woodhouse 1.40 was fourth, Mark Gilles 1.41 fifth both driving Lotus 20/22's, James Claridge in the Richardson Lola 5A sixth also on 1.41, the front engined class was headed by Derek Walker in the Terrier 1.44.619 Charles Jones Cooper T56 1.45.247 was Class B pace setter.

The race was under way spot on time, Simon Hadfield BT6 made a good start but lost the drag race into Copse to hard charging Edwin Jowsey's 22, the early part of the race saw Jowsey pull away slightly from Hadfield, the rest of the front runners ran the early laps more or less in grid order, the exception to this was Robin Longdon Lola 5A who improved a couple of places at the start and maintained this improvement, on lap four the gap between the leaders began to reduce as Hadfield reeled in the leading Lotus, Woodhouse 20/22 was driving very hard to stay in touch, Gillies and Westmoreland in their Lotus's were mixing it with Armer's Cooper, Longdon's Lola was holding on to sixth from Walford's 22, On lap five Hadfield stepped up his challenge for the lead, it began with him disputing position at Abbey, and this scrap continued right round to Copse corner where Hadfield hung on to the racing line through the corner as Jowsey tried, without success, to drive round him, both cars ending up doing some high speed grass cutting, it looked as if there was slight contact between the cars, but after some indignant arm waving from Hadfield both continued at anabated speed, next time round at Copse, Jowsey was clearly having trouble with gears as although he was still close to the new leader, he was off on the escape road still going very quickly but something obviously wasn't right, his challenge for the lead was over and he headed for the pits after lap six, while all this was going on right at the front, those not too far behind the leaders were having their moments, spins by Walford in the 22 and Armer in his T59 promoted Hibberd's 22 to sixth spot, which he tried very hard to cling to, in the end though Walford's 22 was past into sixth.

So that after all the excitement was how it finished the winner Simon Hadfield BT6, 22 seconds ahead of a jubilant Mark Woodhouse 20/22 who had driven really hard right through the race, third was Mark Gillies 20/22,fourth Barry Westmorland 22, Robin Longdon Lola 5A a steady fifth and Martin Walford 22 retaking sixth spot on the last lap from Andrew Hibberd also in a 22.

Thirteenth overall and first front engined car was Derek Walker in his Terrier, seventeenth and first in class B was Charles Jones Cooper T56, next in eighteenth spot and second in the front engined runners was Bill Grimshaw back in his Gemini Mk2 after hitting the high spots at Monaco with his Moorland ! nineteenth and second in class B was Andrew Spence in his Elva 200, third in class A2 was Crispian Besley in his Elva 100, Tony Goodwin's similar car was next in class and the last car to finish on the lead lap.

What had promised to be an interesting race, turned out very much as expected, a real contest in mid race went Simon Hadfield's way but it was very close and nail biting to watch, the standard of turnout and reliability of the cars was a credit to all the drivers/entrants, as Duncan mentioned at the prize giving, the good reliability factor meant that reserves like James Claridge Lola and Erica Pilkington Gemini were without a start in the race.

Stan Hibberd 7th June 2004