Long before the last race of the Silverstone Classic had even been started the event organisers proudly announced that FJHRA Cooper driver Sam Wilson was to be awarded as “Driver of the Weekend”.
No other race at this, the world’s largest historic race meeting, came even close to equalling the exciting intensity of either of the two FJ races.
To say that Sam Wilson aided and abetted by Jon Milicevic, stole the show is something of an understatement.

The grids were massive with the longer GP circuit and including reserves there were 64 cars on track for Qualifying at 9am on Friday.
Pretty much as expected it was defending champion Jon Milicevic’s Cooper T59 on pole with a time of 2:23.004 but just half a second behind was Stuart Roach’s Alexis Mk4 very closely followed by James Murray’s Lola 5A. Completing the second grid row was past winner of almost every important FJ race you care to mention Michael Hibberd’s superb Lotus 27, but this time he was nearly two seconds off the pole setting time.
Class D2 fell to Chris Drake’s Elva 300 starting 8th two places ahead of Benn Simms in Stuart Rolt’s Class C2 leading Elva 200 and Simon Goodliff’s Class B2 Lola Mk2 led the Class B cars to start mid grid in 28th slot. Thankfully now over his bout of pneumonia at Pau in May, Richard Utley’s Caravelle Mk1 headed Class C1 whilst the Sadler of Stephen Bulling took Class B1. Michael Ashley-Brown drove his lovely Volpini, now well in tune, to lead Class A immediately ahead of George Cooper’s Class H Cooper T59, which was obviously well out of tune.
Crispian Besley, had a narrow escape from being completely sidelined when the Cooper and Chris Wilks’ newly acquired Deep Sanderson tangled after just two laps. Crispian abandoned his Cooper T56 and raced on foot to the pits, transferred to his Elva 100 and then re-entered the fray, whilst the Deep trundled on serenely.

With all but Richard Smeeton (R3) surviving qualifying, that still left 10 reserves, leaving a start for last man Brian Jolliffe’s debut of his recently restored Cooper T56 unlikely. Duncan stood aside to ease the reserve situation by one, and thus giving R1 Nick Fennell a start in the French coloured Lotus 27. Poor Tony (Bandini) was a last minute non starter finding his battery leads on back to front, which meant next reserve Andrew Hibberd (Lotus 22) was able to start from the back.

Heavy overnight rain meant that the track was patchy damp for Race 1, again at 9am.
The FJ cars were all assembled in two neat rows in the National (old) Paddock and moved out through garage 1 into the pit lane to be preceded by the rolling start pace car round to start the race in front of the International (new) Paddock.

Thankfully all were cleanly away, except Michael Ashley-Brown’s Volpini which stopped on the green flag lap, allowing Pete Morton (Lightning Envoyette) a late start from the back as next reserve. Unfortunately though, the slippery patches caused difficulty and poor Kevin Musson spun heavily into the Armco on the apex at Copse first time round, his Lola Mk3 rear wheel & suspension rolling out into the centre where it was skilfully retrieved by the ever alert marshals. Then after 2 laps Stuart Roach, rather surprisingly, was caught out and went off at Maggots, his Alexis Mk4 buried deep in the gravel. Arlette Muller (Lotus 22) had a spin which left no-where to go for Lance Whitehead (Lotus 20) and Manfredo Rossi (Lotus 22) also went off in the new section of the circuit also after 2 laps. Simon Goodliff lasted 6 laps before he found a spinning Taraschi (Tony Steele) in his wake.  The reserve situation was confusing to say the least with several cars being eventually black flagged off the track but one who correctly continued was Andrew Hibberd, Lotus 22, who stormed up through the field.
Meanwhile there had been some demon driving at the front and Sam Wilson got his Cooper T59 through to 2nd place behind Jon Milicevic’s similar model after passing Denis Welch’s Lotus 22, Michael Hibberd’s Lotus 27 and James Murray’s Lola 5A.
We have become accustomed to Benn Simms doing amazing things with Stuart Rolt’s Elva 200 and he quickly moved up several places to totally dominate Class C2 and even headed Welch at the flag by 0.069 secs.
Besley’s qualifying encounter with the Deep had cost his Cooper a drive shaft but fellow Cooperiste Jeremy Deeley came to the rescue with a spare and Besley battled in Class C2 with friend and rival Peter Mullen’s Kieft who passed Besley’s Cooper when it stuck in top gear on lap 4 and prevailed to the finish.
Wilson maintained 2nd place behind Milicevic, occasionally getting his nose ahead only for the wily Milicevic to grab the place back on the next bend.
Drake also impressed, tigering past M. Hibberd to take 5th place and win Class D handsomely in the very strong international field.
The large group of Class B2 cars was close fought between Andrew Tart in the Bond and Brian Mitcham in the U2 Mk2 with Tart making up several places in the first lap to eventually pass Mitcham at three quarter distance and take the class B2 win by a small margin.
Christian Traber fought his Lotus 22 to within half a second of Steve Smith’s Cooper T59 for 8th and 9th respectively with Simon Armer’s Cooper T59 right behind.
Our Antipodean friends brought a variety of cars to the event including the rare Koala of Roger Ealand and the Elfin of Bill Hemming. They were accompanied by Kim Shearn’s Lotus 20/22 and Tony Simmons’ Brabham BT6. Shearn and Hemming ran close for much of the race but Hemming fell away as his petrol tank emptied during the last lap. Ealand proved to be the best of the bunch ensuring that he just kept Anthony Goddard’s Tojeiro between himself and Shearn whilst Simmons crossed the finish line just ahead of Utley the victor of Class C1.
Italian honours fell to the Class A Stanguellini of Gordon Wright but fellow Lancastrian resident Peter Anstiss had a very close finish in his Lotus 22 just being pipped on the line by Mark Pangborn’s 20B model and Bulling the only contestant in Class B1 finished a couple of laps in arrears.
While all this excitement had been unfolding right down through the field, Wilson made a move on Milicevic, took the lead during lap 6 and was ahead at the flag by just a quarter of a second after 8 very intense laps of this fabulous race, during which the commentators all but ran out of superlatives and it was not yet half past nine in the morning!
At the podium presentation in the old paddock Sam was almost overcome by his achievement and could hardly find adequate words and Jon was most gracious in defeat telling Sam that he was proud to finish 2nd to such a great driver.

With the event running from two paddocks at opposite ends of the site the Formula Juniors enjoyed a generous garage allocation and the cars were displayed outside nicely spread out to the spectators’ advantage in the warm sunshine.
However, for the many teams with several cars to manage over the weekend the logistics were problematic. For example, Team Hibberd’s base was in the old paddock but they kept Rudi Ernst’s Lotus GP car in the new paddock, whilst Crispian Besley’s Cooper FJ had to be repaired at his team manager’s base in the new paddock.

The FJHRA home made cake refreshments proved to be a great success with most competitors bringing some contribution ~~ well done and many thanks to all the Tea Ladies on duty.
Mr Anstiss was even phoned en-route to the event on Saturday morning and instructed to stop and buy some self raising flour in order that another batch of scones could be baked. Last year he had to find a feline hotel at short notice, this year it was some flour ~~ I wonder what challenge the good Mrs Anstiss will set him next year?

With the cars back in the paddock by midmorning and Sunday’s race scheduled for the civilised hour of 11.30am, FJHRA Technical Officer Grant Wilson requested that the cylinder heads of the podium finishing cars be removed, for internal inspection. No discrepancies were found.

Our second race was started, as usual, in the same grid positions as the first race and Roach, having removed a vast quantity of gravel from his Alexis, was determined to not repeat his mistake and was early down to the assembly area. Arlette Mulller and Musson were non starters after Race 1, so the grid order was rearranged and all the cars filed out onto the track, a fine spectacle.
The rolling start pace car peeled off into the new pit lane and the race was well and truly on when Wilson just tore through and passed Milicevic to lead lap 2 ~ amazing.
There followed one of the most exciting motor races one could imagine. Milicevic and Wilson kept trading places on almost every corner/bend every single lap and whilst doing this opening the gap to the following cars at the rate of a second per lap.
This time the poor commentators had shouted themselves almost to a standstill, such was their excitement, by the time that Wilson once again shot under the chequered flag just ahead of Milicevic after the most frenetic 9 laps.
M. Hibberd was boxed in at the start and took 6 laps to close up to Murray in 3rd place but unable to pass and was 0.176 behind at the end. Welch kept Roach at bay who in turn was ahead of Drake by some margin although their lap times would suggest a closer finish; however Drake won Class D2 with ease from Charlie Butler-Henderson in Deeley’s Cooper T56 ten places behind.
As is usual, races within the race develop between similar performance car & driver combinations and this happened midfield when 31st place was hotly contested with 4 or 5 cars swapping places throughout. At the end it went to Hemming, from Peter St.Barbe’s Elva 100, with Anthony Goddard’s Tojeiro and Justin Fleming’s Elva 100 in close support, less than 3 seconds covering all of these cars at the flag.
Unfortunately there were again some retirements. Goodliff was finished after two laps, an aftermath of the previous days encounter, and Simms was out after just one lap with gearbox problems leaving Mullen to inherit the Class C2 win. Fennel and Rossi both stopped after 6 laps, Fennel spinning and with engine refusing to restart he was pushed away by the marshals, only for the engine to then burst into life but too late then of course. Despite all night engine work Shearn stopped after 5 laps but Andrew Wilkinson’s Cooper T59 and Urs Muller’s Lotus 20/22 had touched on the previous lap with minimal damage apparently but enough to put both cars out of the race.
Mitcham comfortably took Class B2 once Goodliff had departed and Utley finished 36th to claim Class C1. The FIAT powered brigade were comfortably led home by a recovered M A-B for a Class A win ahead of Wright and then Tony Steele’s battle worn Taraschi. Tony Pearson’s Bandini was further back although he did keep ahead of Mike Gregory’s Class C2 De Tomaso Isis despite the latter showing a slightly better best lap time. Wilks’ Deep kept ahead of Bulling whose Sadler had diff problems.

After the race this time Sam was not lost for words ~ he and Jon expressing mutual congratulations and gratitude for a wonderful safe wheel to wheel race as they animatedly talked the prize presentation group through some of their magic moments whilst these were being shown on the large television screens around the site.

A little later DCPR conducted the FJHRA prize giving outside our garages and introduced former BRM Cooper and Team Lotus GP driver Richard Attwood, winner in FJ in a Lola Mk5A both in period (Monaco ’63) and Historics (Oulton Park ’91) to present the trophies; as well as BRM Shadow and Arrows designer Tony Southgate, who helped design that Lola, which is covered in his excellent and readable autobiography.

No sooner had be begun his address than Steve Jones piloting a Spitfire roared overhead to give his flying display. Impeccable timing from this Cooper FJ driver by way of a salute to Sam and Jon and who the race commentators opined had put on the best motor race/s they had ever witnessed ~~ some accolade that.

A brilliant double win result for Sam Wilson, a very happy Historic Team Cooper and a truly memorable event for FJHRA.

All that remained was for Sam to be awarded “Driver of the Weekend” by Nick Wigley the Event Director and this presentation took place on the International (new) Paddock podium later in the afternoon.

Peter Jackson, The Cooper Cockpit Correspondent.