The third round of the Millers Oils championship was at the HSCC two-day meeting on the 3.6 mile Silverstone Historic GP circuit, but for Formula Junior the action was all on Sunday. A massive entry of almost 70 cars meant that the HSCC were persuaded to provide two races in the timetable. Race day weather was officially described as “cloud/dry”, to which those sitting out in the spectating areas would doubtless add “and decidedly nippy for May”!
Unusually, the Class C cars were amalgamated with front-engined. This seemed to work really well. Not only did it give two 30+ grids but the classes were evenly matched and the A/B/C race really recreated a typical 1960 Silverstone FJ race, with the front of the grid being a mix of Lotus 18, Lola 2, Elva 100 etc. Only the Cooper T56s looked a little out of place as, of course, they only had their debut in November 1960, after the Silverstone season had finished – shame there were no T52s entered.
                  There were a few non-starters, Stuart Roach had not fully recovered from a minor operation, the diff in Tony Pearson’s Bandini “had a bad headache” after Cadwell, Chris Wilks’ Deep Sanderson was not yet repaired after Pau and Justin Fleming was kept away by family commitments. But, the big news was the appearance of Mike Waller’s beautifully restored Hillwood Fiat , restored with guidance from Norman Hillwood himself and Brian Urlwin, after being retrieved from Lou Pavesi in the USA.
                  Qualifying saw Robert Barrie (Lotus 18) set fastest time in 2’31.301”, 0.69” ahead of Jon Milicevic, who was taking the opportunity of the different race split to give his Lotus 18 an airing. On the second row, Jack Woodhouse (Elva 100) was the fastest front-engined with 2’32.545”, with Crispian Besley (T56) alongside. Brian Mitcham (U2) and Simon Goodliff (Lola 2) made up row 3. Simon had been dubious to start up to the last minute after frustrating problems with the engine were finally resolved in Friday’s testing
                  At the start, Jon Milicevic got away best and took the lead from Robert Barrie but he was only 0.5” ahead at the end of the lap, followed by Mitcham, Woodhouse, Besley and Goodliff. Next up was Andrew Tart (Bond) and really these seven appeared to be quicker than the rest of the 32 car field. Charles Cook spun and stalled the Envoy on lap 1 at Brooklands; happily everyone avoided him but it took him a long while to get going again. The first significant change occurred when Barrie slowed on lap 3 and pulled in to the pits with ignition issues. This left Milicevic holding off a strong challenge from Jack Woodhouse who had passed Mitcham on lap 2. The dark green Lotus looked a likely winner – but as has been said many times before, nothing is certain in motor racing and on lap 5 Jon stopped too with a failed rotor arm This left Woodhouse 3 seconds ahead of Mitcham with Goodliff 5” down, then 4” to Besley and 6” to Tart, but the interest became the progress of Goodliff who was lapping a couple of second quicker than the U2 and at the flag the gap to Brian Mitcham had come down to 0.7”.
                  So, the final order saw the front-engined cars triumph in the order Woodhouse, Mitcham, Goodliff with Besley 4th and 1st in C2, followed by Tart and Ellingworth (Gemini 2). Behind Crispian in C2 were James Owen (Elva 200) and Phoebe Rolt (Elva 200). B1 was won by Gil Duffy (Bond), with an excellent 9th overall, from the Sadler of Stephen Bulling, although the results wrongly showed David Hall as winner of this class. In C1 Richard Utley was unopposed – he made good progress through the field to 17th at the flag, having been 31st on lap 1.
The lower orders really became quite spread out and Class A provided probably the best dice of the race. Jan Biekens was 24th on lap 1 but shot up the order to be 17th and class leader on lap 3. Pat Barford in the EFAC was on his tail and pushing hard but Jan seemed to have things under control until the Stanguellini became stuck in third gear, allowing Barford to win the class by 3.8”. Gordon Wright was third, piping Michael Ashley-Brown on the final tour. Duncan, after a spin at Becketts , following some suspension changes, followed the Class A boys apace as he caught up again.
Apart from Robert Barrie and Jon Milicevic, reliability was very good and the only other non-finisher was Peter Fenichel whose engine just cut out on the Hanger Straight. Peter assumed a dead battery so no petrol pump, but it turned out to be another Rotor Arm failure so obviously no spark.
The Classes D & E race saw 36 out for qualifying. No-shows were Chris Drake (Elva 300), Laine Martin due to injury and Mark Pangborn, with engine failure as he warmed up on Friday ,whilst Sir John Chisholm (Gemini 3A) was to be a non-starter after practice when his “unlucky” engine blew up for the fourth time! Amongst the entry we welcomed US visitor Sharon Adelman with her BT6. Her husband Graham was driving a Lola T210 in the Martini Trophy race. 
David Methley (BT6) was fastest in practice with 2’21.701”, 0.113” faster than Sam Wilson (T59) with Jon Milicevic’s T59 next, a further 0.283” down. These three were followed by Andrew Hibberd (Lotus 22), Michael Hibberd (Lotus 27), James Murray (Lola 5A), Jonathan Hughes (BT6) and Pete Morton (Lightning Envoyette), just 1.6” covering these eight. Returnee, Andrew Wilkinson (Lynx) was an excellent fastest in D2 whilst David Hall (BMC Mk2) and Malcolm Wishart (Cooper) were unopposed in the other classes, once Andrew Thorpe’s disc-braked Lotus 20 had been reclassified as E1.
Come the race and Jon Milicevic got a great start to lead from Sam, whilst David Methley had a half-spin and completed the opening lap in third followed by Hughes and the Hibberds, Michael ahead of Andrew. The race became something of a replay of last year’s Silverstone Classic with Jon and Sam battling well ahead of anyone else, though on this occasion, despite setting the fastest lap, Sam never managed to get ahead (at least at the timing line) and in the end Jon won by a second. Methley’s chances took a dive when he fell back to eighth on lap 3, finding first instead of third gears. Jonathan Hughes therefore inherited third, falling steadily back from the leaders but under pressure from Michael Hibberd. Andrew was passed by James Murray but the latter dropped out when a new rubber doughnut broke. Andrew then passed Michael Hibberd but, meanwhile, David Methley had overcome his problems and picked off Michael on lap 7 and Andrew on the 9th and final lap to claim fourth. Behind the Hibberds, Mark Woodhouse snatched seventh on the last lap from Nicholas Fennell (Lotus 27). Pete Morton was 9th after a spin at Brooklands and Steve Smith (T59) completed the top 10.
D2 fell to Andrew Wilkinson, coming out on top of a lively scrap with John Sykes (Merlyn 5/7), Richard Smeeton (Lotus 22) and Peter Anstiss (20/22). Again, reliability was very good. Technically James Murray was the only retirement but Will Schryver (Lotus 27) was in and out of the pits and Vern Williamson’s Ausper T4 also pitted and was very slow when running, so both completed insufficient laps to be classified.
There was further FJ interest in the Classic Racing Cars event where Nick Fennell appeared again. He enjoyed a good tussle with Tim Kary (BT28) and Stuart Tizzard (Chevron B15C). The earlier-generation Lotus 27 upheld the FJ flag admirably and Nick was seventh overall.               

By Richard Page