Photos thanks to Dave Brassington
Congratulations go to Gary Pearson in the Jaguar D-type who drove a sixty minute solo race to victory in the Royal Automobile Club Woodcote Trophy, despite a ferocious challenge from the Cooper Jaguar of Fred Wakeman and Patrick Blakeney Edwards who had to settle for second by just 3 seconds at the flag. Malcolm Paul and Rick Bourne put in a solid performance in the Lotus X to pip the John Ure/Nick Wigley Cooper to third but, as ever, there were some great battles going on right the way through the grid to ensure it was a vintage Woodcote Trophy race.
The rain returned with a vengeance for Monday’s Stirling Moss Trophy race, where pole sitters Bobby Verdon-Roe and Gregor Fisken sat in the stunning Ferrari 246S, but the rain meister Chris Ward took the lead from the start in the JD Classics Lister Jaguar Costin and from there he never looked back. As the sixty-minute race unfolded the track did start to dry out, the slippery conditions caught out a few competitors but without serious incident. It ended as a Lister dominated race with Richard Kent coming in 2nd and the pairing of Tony Wood and Will Nuthall (3rd) blocked out the top three spots leaving the Lotus 15s of Oliver Bryant and Dion Kremer emerging out of the spray to round out the top five.
Auto Addicts Editor : Healey Report
Mike and I were out fielding the Austin Healey 100M for the first time of the season at Donington, which without any pre season running we were unsure as to how it was going to perform. Qualifying went well with Mike putting in an early flyer to lead all the Healey’s – that was until until lap 13 when both Healey 100S’ popped in last minute flyers. Firstly Karsten Le Blanc went a second faster, followed by the Young / Hood duo who put in almost an identical time. Still we were happy to be up amongst the 100s gang.
In the race, Mike got a good start to get ahead of Karsten off the line, but both Healey’s were taken off guard by the Abecassis / Woolmer Healey which came muscling through on lap one. As the race unfolded so did the dramas, the Young / Hood Healey came in on Lap 3 with problems but rejoined. Karsten Le Blanc came in suffering from a mis-fire and we saw Denis Welch Motorsport running to and from the Paddock to try and fix the issues, despite rejoining, several times. Karsten’s car never returned to form. The Abecassis / Woolmer Healey ended up buried deep into the Old Hairpin Kitty litter and never rejoined. By the pit stop change Mike was up into 6th place overall and the leading Healey 100, he handed over to me to continue the race and we continued in this position until just 5 minutes before the end when the fan belt popped off – I had to sadly retire the car due to over heating. But in this great battle of the Healey 100’s – this left the lovely Healey 100M of Nils Fredrik-Byblaeus to clean up and take the lead, (2nd in class, 9th overall) Derek Hood and John Young were 2nd Healey home (3rd in class, 13th overall) and we were still classified as 4th (17th overall). Not a good day for reliability for the Healey 100’s but what an exciting race!
