Austin Healey 3000 Theodore Hunt

The Vintage Sports Car Club’s early start to the track action year is the annual Pomeroy Trophy meeting at Silverstone. Taking place round the short National circuit, the event is a series of tests designed to find the intimate Grand Touring car, and is the only VSCC event during the year that is open to any road legal vehicle, regardless of age. This always draws an interesting entry from the VSCC members, where some will enter their treasured Vintage car, while others might arrive in their wives modern shopping saloon. This year the oldest car entered was a 1906 7.4 litre Bianchi 28/40 driven by Luke Roberts which also boasted the largest capacity engine. Another interesting Edwardian car was the 1909 Hupmobile 20 driven by Richard Ellingworth. At the other end of the time scale was a 2014 Volkswagen Golf driven by Christopher Petch.

One of the interesting tests for the vehicles is they must be able to carry luggage, and there is a set of ‘standard’ size suitcases which are suppose to fit in to the boot or luggage area, and penalty points are given for items that don’t fit. Tw of the more modern cars which probably had problems in this area were a 1965 Ford GT40 driven by Jason Wright, who must have been expected bad weather as the car was fitted with a pair of Ski’s on a ski rack, and  a Crossle SS racing sports car driven by Simon Diffey that had a luggage rack mounted on the boot. The Crossle also won the award for the ‘best’ canopy. All the cars have to have a hood fitted during some of the early acceleration and braking tests, and in previous years some of these hoods have been plastic bags held up by sticks. The Crossle is normally an open seater sports car, but was fitted with a grumman aircraft cockpit cover for Simon Diffey to complete the morning tests. It was removed before the afternoon high speed trials. Also showing the family nature of VSCC events, the Diffey family were out in force with Simon Diffey in the Crossle, Margaret (Mags) Diffey was in the 1936 Frazer Nash TT replica and George Diffey was driving the family 2013 Renault Clio RenaultSport. After Simon went off during the second high speed trial and hit the barrier, it was Mags who was the highest finisher of the family with 2nd in class, while George took 3rd in class.

The overall winner of the Pomeroy Trophy was Dudley Sterry in his 1937/39 HRS Sports for the best performance overall, while the Denham Trophy for the best pre-war car not winning overall went to David Wylie in his 1928 Frazer Nash AC. The final trophy was the Pomeroy Edwardian Trophy for the best performance in an Edwardian car which was won by David Biggins in his 1911/12 Vauxhall Prince Henry Replica. The other class winners were Steven Stanton in a 1934/36 Frazer Nash TT replica, Martin Hunt in a 1952 Frazer Nash Targa Florio, Alastair Pugh in a 1939 Frazer Nash BMW 328, Geraint Lewis in a 1936/40 Frazer Nash TT Replica and finally Kenneth Prichard Jones in a 1966 Turner Mk3.

© By Simon & Janet Wright

 

 

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