Mallory Park 21st May 2006.

The Formula Junior race.  Steve Smith robbed !
A bitter-sweet day for Coopers.

In heavy driving rain, Steve Smith qualified his Cooper T59 into pole position accompanied on the front row of the grid by friend and rival Simon Armer with his Cooper T59.

Malevolent weather continued relentlessly all day and when the red lights went out for the race start these two were away, the terrible conditions seemingly not to worry them much.
They gradually pulled away from the others and looked to have a Cooper 1 – 2 finish sewn up when disaster for Steve. At the end of the back straight and changing down for the Esses his clutch disintegrated, momentarily locking his drive, and he spun off in a shower of mud and grass. Simon drove on for the remaining few laps to take the flag, very grateful for his win but disappointed for poor Steve who was naturally distraught that a mechanical failure had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and robbed him so cruelly of his almost certain maiden race victory.

Behind these modern day “Cooper Twins”, John Truslove in his well driven Lola Mk2 and Mark Woodhouse’s slightly more distant Lotus 20/22 both moved up one place, to take the 2nd & 3rd podium steps in the wake, almost literally, of Steve’s retirement.

This was a weekend of double celebrations. The 40th anniversary of HSCC was marked by an event at Silverstone on Saturday where Michael Hibberd triumphed in the FJ race, mercifully touch-dry for the race after a horribly wet qualifying. That evening, nine FJ drivers decamped and headed the 45 miles north to be joined on Sunday by another six for the BARC races in honour of 50 years of racing at Mallory Park.   
That a dozen survived unscathed was a testament to the skills of all involved. Man on the move was Bill Grimshaw nibbling away to finish 7th from starting 12th in his Moorland.
Ian Raby jnr, son of the Ian Raby who drove the Moorland to that famous first ever FJ victory at Brands Hatch in 1959, was on hand today having come over especially from his home in Spain to see the Moorland.
Other interest included Martin Cowell’s North Star, which we don’t see often enough, with the Hewland gearbox VW maincase being unusually uninverted.
Tim Bishop tells me that his own FJ Essenkay has this similarly rare arrangement.
Deryk Young brought along the attractive Dolphin for the demo run, which unfortunately didn’t happen but it proved useful in donating some carburettor jets to his friend’s North Star. Jeremy Bouckley was running in the invitation class with his 1957 F2 Smith. This has a front mounted 1460cc FWB Climax engine the clutched output shaft of which runs low level at engine speed to the lower gearwheel of a rear mounted drop box whose upper gearwheel is directly coupled to an amazingly tiny Velocette motorcycle gearbox right in the tail.
The drive thence passes forward concentrically through the drop box upper gearwheel directly to an Austin differential and thereby via sliding spline driveshafts to the wheels.
The whole final drive arrangement is thus exceptionally light, has low level input shaft and benefits from sequential gear selection.
Unfortunately all this innovation didn’t prevent a clutch problem from causing Jeremy’s retirement at Shaws hairpin after just 4 laps.
The other retiree was Kevin Musson, whose Lotus 18 chewed its gearbox internals again.

Class C1 was represented solely by Paul Davis continuing to race his Lotus 20 as often as possible in order to quickly gain experience and a licence upgrade. Talking of which, he unfortunately failed to retrieve said licence from Silverstone the previous day. He realised this when signing on at Mallory on Sunday morning so dashed back to Silverstone to await the race control office opening. He then dashed back to Mallory but unfortunately during his dash he was nabbed by one of “Leicestershire’s Finest” squad cars and now in addition to having race licence signatures he also has road licence signatures ! He finished the race 8th. John Truslove elected the cheaper solution and simply paid the admin fee when he too realised he had left his race licence at Silverstone.
Finishing 4th & 5th respectively Paul Smeeth & “Whizzo” Westmoreland kept their Lotus 22s ahead of Crispian Besley’s Elva, who in turn kept his arch rival Bill Grimshaw at bay.
Tony Steele was having an off day with his Lola Mk2 but managed to finish 9th in front of Bernard Brock’s Elva. Tony Martindale’s good start in the Sauter came unstuck when terminal understeer into Gerrards lost him the places he had gained and he came unstuck again later at the Esses when he spun closely in front of Simon Armer, but he finished 11th. Martin Cowell brought the North Star home with a carefully controlled run to close the race.

The chequered flag only went out for Simon Armer just as he flashed over the line, so unsure of the situation he wisely continued unabated for another lap but was then ushered into the paddock instead of customarily receiving his laurel wreath on the finish line.
He was presented with it at prize giving where we all crowded for shelter under the combined Smith-Besley awning. And would you believe it but virtually as the last round of applause died away the clouds instantly cleared and we were suddenly blinded by brilliant sunshine ! 
Steve Smith was even cheered by this sudden warmth so we all had another bottle of Crispian’s excellent Cobra beer whilst the man himself appeared from within his red truck, the very model of sartorial elegance and nipped away to catch an aeroplane for Tokyo.

Peter Jackson.
The Cooper Cockpit Correspondent.