~~~~ SCENE AT SILVERSTONE ~~~~
The annual HGPCA Test Day with invited FJHRA participation.

Wonderful warm sunny conditions greeted a huge array of fabulous racing cars out for the spring Test Day and several Formula Junior types took advantage of it.
You wouldn’t see any finer cars even at Goodwood or the Silverstone Festival.

Formula Junior cars were >
Foglietti driven by Alan Baillie, who has just about started to prepare his newly acquired Wainer, but it wasn’t ready for this occasion.
Cooper T59 with Simon Armer trying out various suspension set-ups and at times in deep discussion with his good friend & rival, Steve Smith.
Erica Pilkington is hopefully at last seeing light at the end of a bleak tunnel of trouble with her Gemini and was pleased to complete a good few laps.
Rudolf Ernst was pushing his Lotus 22 to some good times, according to Stan Hibberd who was on hand as always.
Richard Utley used the occasion to try out his newly restored, still unpainted, Caravelle. This is chassis #2 and this means that all 3 chassis which he and BobHicks produced are all now running.
David Pratley had his Lola Mk2 and made good use of the day setting up & adjusting etc.

Formula Junior pilots in other cars were >
Nigel Bancroft (usually Lotus 22) testing the Cooper T45, which he restored over the winter in preparation for racing it this season when the owner is away on business.
This is the car nicely displayed on Niglel’s stand at the Stoneleigh Race Retro show.
Steve Russell looked like a dog with two tails racing his new Mk2 Cooper Bristol which is quite different to his Stanguellini of course.
Michael Waller used the day to try out his lovely Lotus 23B after some winter fettling
Michael Hibberd was getting to grips with Rudi’s GP Lotus 18 Climax and demonstrated his usual fast style as well as setting the car up for Rudi to race this season.

Additional to all those above, there were many of our friends including Geoff Williams, Malcolm Ricketts, Michael Schryver and Duncan Rabagliati who was dressed more for court than for paddock. (no he wasn’t sporting a powdered wig !)

The day was arranged into various sessions to suit various types of cars and included a couple of sessions for passenger rides in selected cars generously driven by their owners.
You scribe took full measure of any availability and was first blasted round the track by Ludovic Lindsay in a huge Pan-Americana Oldsmobile, I imagine that this is the sort of machine which Fangio used to race across South America before he was “discovered”.
Next was a very impressive ride in a Ferrari 250 GTO, which was spell binding in its precision handling and light control. Steve Smith also had a ride in this car.
Final ride was appropriately some fast laps in a Cooper Bristol Sports Racing car and somehow this felt slightly more normal, probably because it was an open car.

Stella Jackson and Sue Hoole handled the HGPCA formalities with exemplary ease & efficiency and we are most grateful to them both and to Martin Grant-Peterkin for inviting the Formula Juniors again this year and it was nice to see a good take up of this super opportunity.

Peter Jackson, the Cooper Cockpit Correspondent.