Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix – 4/5th August

This was the 4th running of the Copenhagen street races in the Faelledparken, and this year the anticlockwise circuit had been doubled in length to 2 kilometres.
Organisers Ole Markussen and Claus Frausing had tried hard to encourage a more formal arrangement with the Porto and Pau street circuits to form the Historic City Challenge, to encompass sports cars, and TC/GT cars as well as Formula Junior but this had been scuppered by the FIA – nonetheless FJHRA have run their own Challenge and this was still to be a focus for the FJ entry.

From GB came Dr Tony Goodwin with Marion and John Sabourin as revered spannerman, taking a break this year from running the BRM P154 Can Am car, the Gemini MK II front suspension repaired after its Porto excursion.  Dr Mark Green’s transporter was to hand with daughter Charlotte, Matt and Steve also bringing John Truslove’s BT6, while he & Micky and Mark flew out. Duncan and Mair, driving via Harwich – Esberg towed the faithful Alexis, Iain Rowley having diagnosed the Silverstone failure as HT leads, and all restored to health. George Cooper (T59) had entered, but withdrew when he, like others, had analysed the cost of motorhomes on the Ferry.  Robin Longdon (Mk 5A) had cut back his programme, and Reijo Heurlin from Finland had provisionally enterd the yet to be raced Elhoo, a Lotus 20 type copy raced in Finland in period.

Local participation came from the Alfa Dana’s of Mogens Christensen (FJ MK 1) and Thorkil Kirk Simonsen (F3 / 500), Martin Borch – Christensen in his Cooper T52, wife Birgit doing gate duty for this event, but Martin also running for only the second time in his Lola T162 Can Am car, Allan Bach Sorensen, now returned to Denmark from the PRC in the ex-Kok Louwen Saxon – DKW going better than it had ever before, and leading local driver, Erik Justesen, bring out his Lotus 22 once again – “provided I can still fit in it, and it is dry” – well, both conditions were satisfied as the rains that had been sweeping Europe gave way to a minor heat wave by Friday lunchtime, and Ole’s worries about a Park mud bath were assuaged.

Apart from the increase in track length, a sponsored breakfast / lunch facility for Drivers was a welcome addition, but the timetabling left something to be desired, with most of our track appearances being around an hour later than scheduled, and all cut back severely to help make up lost time. (Shades of HSCC!!) The first qualifying session was little more than 8 minutes of a scheduled 30! But at least a chance to learn the track with John Truslove comfortably ahead of Eric but only 0.002 of a second separated the lead front engined cars of Goodwin and Christensen.  Duncan has a low comfort threshold when first confronted with a  street circuit, and was the last FJ, behind the Saxon, though still ahead of the 500.  Sunday’s “warm up” was rescheduled as another qualifying session, so we were forced early out of bed, and there was general improvement, except for the Saxon, with Duncan ahead that time, after finding 3 valuable seconds, and Mark Green edging ahead of the T52 Cooper.

Race 1 saw the field fairly spread out, with Truslove comfortably ahead of Eric , after lap 1 and Tony Goodwin just unlapped.  Mark was driving a determined race in the 18, with the City Challenge very much in mind, and had a good lead over Martin Borch-Christensen in FJ1R class. Duncan improved again, with the 1m 10’s barrier cracked.  As Tony drew into the paddock, there were ominous signs of oil, and a holed sump on the bumpy circuit was diagnosed – luckily John was able to weld up with one of the British GT teams.

Things were somewhat closer in race 2, Eric leading for 2 laps, before Truslove led away, but the track appeared slower, with most drivers except Goodwin, a second or so down on the first race.  Battle of the race was between Mark and an enthusiastic (and sometimes near sideways) Martin Borch – Christensen with Mark just safely ahead at the flag.

A grnad presentation and podium took place on the start finish line, with the race winner and placemen formed by Mark Green, Duncan and Truslove (again!) as the first 3 overall in the Historic City Challenge, receiving an engraved plaque and Copenhagen glassware  - but nothing to match the magnificent TAG Heuer watch collected by race winner Truslove!

It had been a fun, if somewhat unusual meeting, and everyone was very friendly.  Ronnie Bredhauser had a 22 car grid of his GT / TC Challenge, Martin Grant – Peterkin and Ted Rollason were there to see the event with a view to HGPCA participation in 2008 [and they departed, favourably disposed to a pre 66 F1 race]. Derek Bell was to have shared a BMW with HRH Prince Joachim of Denmark, second son of the Queen, but the latter crashed in practice but can out again to race in his Elan, while Derek did popular track and radio-mike duty for the crowds, as did multiple Le Mans Winners, Denmark’s own Tim Christensen.

Duncan Rabagliati – Aug 07