Formula Junior – Oulton Park Gold Cup 27/28 AUG 06

There was such a strong Formula Junior entry for this meeting that it was decided to run two races, the first, on the Sunday, scoring points for ‘rear engine disc brake’ (C2), and the Monday race would score points for everybody else.      There was a flexible arrangement to allow cars to run in the ‘other’ race, where they would not eligible for points, which some elected to do.     This led to two well-filled grids, 32 on Sunday and 31 on Monday.

Oulton Park was its usual verdant self, and the circuit has had much care lavished on it by the Company under  Jonathan Palmer’s chairmanship; new control centre and garages, even clean toilets.    All weekend bands of litter pickers patrolled.     However the surprising omission is the failure to provide mains electricity and water points through the paddock, resulting in generators running all over the place.

At Oulton there is an agreement that no race engines be run before 12 midday on a Sunday.   Qualifying therefore was on the Saturday.    The track was dry, and the running time was 20 minutes.      Michael Hibberd secured pole ahead of Eberhardt, Fyda, Walford and Longdon, with the Monaco winner, Denis Welch surprised to be back in fifth.    An interesting car, which I would have liked to have time to look at, was Yuzaburo Baba’s Foglietti FJ20 which Qualified for row 9.

The weather deteriorated all week-end in that the frequency and severity of the showers increased each day.     For Saturday qualifying the shower waited until the Juniors came off the circuit.     On Sunday there had been early showers, though the race took place on a track that was substantially dry.     The contest at the front turned out to be the most exciting Junior race I have ever seen, including quite a few back “in period”.    It was as close as could be imagined: Eberhardt, Michael Hibberd and Welch passing the pits often three abreast.    Welch had been assisted in joining this battle by Fyda dropping out on the first lap with deranged throttle linkage.    Denis did manage to get into the lead a couple of times, but Urs got back both times by diving inside going into Old Hall.    Eberhardt was not penalised for cutting the Britten’s chicane when in the lead; not gaining a place though he did thereby open a gap from Welch.     Urs afterwards said that he had missed his aiming point for the chicane as the piece of plastic he had been using as a marker had been removed by another car.    Michael Hibberd never managed to get the lead, but less than 4/10ths. of a second covered the first three at the finish.    Behind these three Longdon, Walford, Andrew Hibberd, and Woodhouse were not too far back, though there was no passing among this group.      The rest of the field went much in line with qualifying times, John Delane managing to keep ahead of a close group of Baba, Armer and Sykes.     Nobody except the first three got a mention from the commentators, who got pretty excited at times.       Another shower started as the Juniors were coming back into the Paddock.

Monday morning at 0815, after very heavy overnight rain, saw the qualifying for the second Junior race, which I timed from the shelter of the garages, no umbrellas being allowed on the pit wall for fear of one blowing onto the track.    As Eberhardt and Michael Hibberd had gone home it was not surprising that Denis Welch secured pole from John Fyda.     These two, and Morrison and Sykes on row 2, were class C2.    John Truslove (A2) was alongside John Delane (C1) on row three, but did not expect to be able to hold off Derek Walker (A2) from the fourth row as he was having trouble with brakes.     John Chisholm (C1) – on his birthday – was unaccustomedly far back on row thirteen.

It was still wet for the race, which was off at 1445.    Denis Welch led all the way, but was kept honest by John Fyda running a few seconds behind but never getting close enough to threaten a pass.    Simon Diffey, who was second into the first corner, fell back in third.   John Truslove had to let Derek Walker go, but managed to stay ahead of Bill Grimshaw who was almost caught by the Stanguelini of Jason Wright, all the way from Italy.   Jason attributes the performance to the five speed gearbox enabling him to make the best of the engine’s power curve.    Roger Dexter’s very nicely restored Elva 100 with DKW 2-stroke finished just ahead of the similar engine in the Sauter of Tony Martindale.     John Chisholm recovered well from his lowly grid position, but could get nowhere near the Lotus 18 of John Delane, who took class C1.       David Bain recovered from a spin acquired by watching, in his mirrors, Peter Jackson catching him.    George Cooper came off at the Britten’s chicane, and did not restart.
Doug Martin did not make it round the first lap.     “Gold” cups for class winners and places, and birthday cake c/o the Chisholms.        Formula Junior had made a good showing in what was a pretty major motor sport event.

This report would normally have been done by Stan Hibberd.     We hear that he is doing well after his recent heart trouble, and we all wish him well.

I am sorry that I did not talk to as many people as I would have wished, but working on John Truslove’s Lola Mk2 took a while.   On Saturday we had the engine out to correct the clutch withdrawal mechanism, while the rest of the week end we had brake trouble, since traced to a supplier (no red faces on the team!) putting a slave cylinder seal in the wrong way round.    If you want some thing done properly   ……………..

I have scanned into this document some of the sheets issued by race control. they are:

Page 3             Grid for the first race.

Page 4             Result of first race.

Page 5             Grid for second race.

Page 6             Result of second race.

John Greenwood
31AUG06

Qualifying on Saturday 26AUG gave this Grid for Sunday 27AUG

 

The Race on Sunday 27AUG turned out like this

 

Qualifying on the morning of Monday 28AUG gave this grid:

 

The Race on Monday turned out like this: