Jaguars At The Revival
There cannot be many classic car enthusiasts who do not know of the Goodwood Revival, the Westhampnet WW2 airfield that went on to host club and national motorsport until it’s closure in 1966, a period which is now re-created in fabulous and meticulous detail by Lord March and his very accomplished team. This is a winning combination of the best cars, serious racing, period fashion, atmospheric cameos and entertainment that makes this the very best event of its type anywhere in the world.
We will try to describe this year’s event with particular reference to the interests of Jaguar Enthusiasts.
Kinrara Trophy
The weekend started with qualifying throughout Friday, leading up to the first full race late in the evening, a one hour, two driver race for GT cars up to 1962 which was tailor-made for the earliest e-types, pitted against Aston Martin DB4s and Ferrari 250 GTs.
On a wet and slippery track, e-types filled the front row with Rob Huff on pole from Gregor Fisken and Nigel Greensall. At the flag, Huff and Greensall got away well and were joined by the e-types of Ollie Bryant and Andrew Smith, with six e-types leaving Madgwick before an Aston and a Ferrari in seventh and eighth.
When Huff pulled into the pits with a gearbox fault, it left Greensall 14 seconds ahead of Minshaw, now in second place, who handed the car to Phil Keen just before the safety car was launched to recover a stricken Corvette. As racing resumed, the seventeen car stopped on circuit and Keen was left to bring the car home for the win. With e-types in the first seven places, this was a great start to our weekend.
Ecurie Ecosse
There are very few privateer race teams that beat the works entries, but when the team founded in Edinburgh by David Murray, won the Le Mans 24 hour race in 1956 with their D-type and then surpassed this feat by taking first and second places in 1957, they had truly achieved the impossible.
Sixty years later the win by Ron Flockhart and Ivor Bueb and second place of Ninian Sanderson and Jock Lawrence was celebrated at Goodwood with a parade of twenty-four cars and the team’s famous transporter, preceded by a formal introductory address by Lord March.
The parade was led by Sir Jackie Stewart driving the 1957 winning car.
Also present for the weekend was Ron Gaudion, an Aussie from Melbourne who was a contemporary of Norman Dewis. Ron was part of the crew that prepared Jaguar’s winning car in 1955 before moving to Ecurie Ecosse to prepare the victorious cars of the next two years, and so has a direct link to all three cars.
St Mary’s Trophy (Race 1)
This twenty-five minute race for production saloons that raced between 1950 and 1959, with the cars driven professional race drivers, included five Mk 1 and one MkV11 saloons,.
There were four Austin A40s at the front of the grid ahead of Anthony Reid in the first of the Jaguars, and then Frank Stippler on the third row in the green and yellow Mk1, part owned by Brian Lister in period and carrying its original race number of 25.
At the start, three A40s rounded Madgwick, Jordan, Huff and Caine, closely followed by Jason Plato in an Austin A95 and then the green Jaguar. Stippler quickly moved up and then passed two of the A40s in one swoop along the Lavant straight to take second place. Andrew Jordan was next as the cars went through Fordwater, before the A40 retired on lap ten, leaving the Jaguar to win by eighteen seconds from the A95.
From a spectator viewpoint, all the excitement in this race was provided by the two A40s of Michael Caine and Rob Huff who spent the second half of the race cornering side by side and swapping third and fourth places, to gasps from the crowd. Just fantastic to watch such close racing and mastery of car control.
Anthony Reid brought the next Jaguar home in fifth place, with Tony Jardine in fourteenth and Jochen Mass in fifteenth. The other Jaguars retired.
St Mary’s Trophy (Race 2)
In the second part on Sunday, cars were to be driven by their owners, but Jaguar enthusiasts were disappointed to note the absence of yesterday’s winner from the grid. However, we did have Justin Law on the front row, Grant Williams on row three and Richard Butterfield on row four.
One of the A40s led the first lap from an Alpha Giulietta, then Law in third from Williams, with Butterfield in seventh place.
If the A40s thrilled on Saturday, then it was the turn of the two mk 1s on Sunday as the two big Jaguars raced side by side, swapping places and bringing the crowd to their feet with controlled but massive power oversteer.
Leaving the chicane for the last time, there was only the thickness of a coat of paint between them, the pair raced for the line, Williams ahead of Law by a couple of hundredths of a second.
Freddie March Trophy
Starting on a wet track, this allowed the C-types to display, although they were not to be front runners among this particular group of sports racing cars (1952 -55).
Best placed on the grid were Gregor Fisken and Fred Wakeman in tenth and eleventh places, with Ben Cussons in fifteenth and John Young in nineteenth.
In difficult conditions, Young moved through the field to finish fifth with Fisken a few seconds behind in sixth place as Wakeman retired his car.
The interest in this race lay with the Cooper Jaguar of Chris Ward who started last but with a great drive throughout the twenty minutes, brought his car though the entire field to finish first (on the road).
RAC TT
The weekend’s blue ribbon event was a one hour, two driver race for closed cockpit cars (1963-64) and saw eight e-types take to the grid, including a single e-type (Ward, Sheddon) on pole position surrounded by AC Cobras.
Ward made a slow getaway and came out of Madgwick down in fifth place behind three Cobras, led by David Hart, and a TVR Griffith. Ward brought the e-type up to second, before an “off” at St Mary’s meant he had to do it all over again. This was to prove his undoing, as in the process of recovering and whilst chasing through Fordwater, he nudged the back of the Cobra in the hands of Andrew Smith, spinning it around, and earning Ward a thirty second time penalty.
An early change put “Flash Gordon” Shedden into the e-type in second place to chase and eventually pass Olivier Hart in his Cobra, before Hart pulled up with an oil leak. By this time Andy Wolfe in yet another Cobra was putting in a series of fast laps that brought him into contention and past Shedden with just four minutes remaining. These two then raced for the win, Shedden taking the flag on the road, but relegated to second as a result of the earlier penalty.
Sussex Trophy
An hour of continuous rain preceded the last race of the weekend and left standing water over the whole circuit, as the World Championship sports cars (1955 – 60) formed up for the final race of the weekend. The D-types were designed for the long straights and fast curves of Le Mans and were always at a disadvantage on tight circuits when racing more nimble cars, and so it proved, with six cars entered, the best D of Christian Glasel started on the third row. The conditions did not deter and there was good racing for the diminished number of spectators (and the very few photographers) who remained. The win went to a Ferrari Dino, followed by a Lotus 15, but Jaguar powered the Tojeiro in third and the Lister in fourth. Leading D-type home was Gary Pearson in sixth plac