A bright but cold day at Silverstone saw the end to the 2012 season for the Historic Sports Car Club. A packed nine race program saw the cumulation of most of the HSCC championships with variety being the usual order of the day. Early morning mist made the track quite slippery during practice and saw many competitors spinning off as they explored the limits of man and machine for the final time this year.
Classic Formula 3 started the meeting with Greg Caton winning the race in his March 803B from David Shaw in a Ralt RT1. Historic Road Sports had a large field of classic sports cars including Lotus, Morgan, TVR, Triumph and MG with Paul Tooms being the class of the field in his Lotus Elan. Peter Shaw in an Elan S1 and Andy Shepherd in a Lotus Seven S2 made it a clean sweep of the podium for the Lotus marque.
Next we were back to single seaters with the Historic Formula Ford race. This had a large entry and after an exciting race Stuart Baird in his Merlyn Mk11A finished just 0.146 of a second ahead of David Wild in a Lola T200.
The Formula Junior race saw a most spectacular end when the race had to be red flagged after an accident at Brooklands corner. Championship contender Jon Milicevic driving a Cooper T59 dived up the inside of David Methley under braking whilst battling for the lead of the race. Their wheels touched and Methley drove over the front wheel of Milicevic and was launched in to a roll which saw him finish upside down on the run off area at Brooklands. Milicevic spun off and had to be extracted from his car by the medical team and marshals, while Methley managed to scramble out on his own before the marshals reached him. Both men were shaken and bruised and Milicevic was send to Hospital for a check up but was later released. After the dust had settled Sam Wilson in a Cooper T59 was given the win from Callum Macleod in a Caravelle Mk2.
The Historic Touring cars was a win for Mike Gardiner in a Ford Falcon from a sideways and hard charging Dan Cox in his yellow Ford Lotus Cortina. Mike Jones won the Classic Racing Cars race at the wheel of a Lotus 59 and James Dodd won the Guards Trophy race in his blue and orange Ginetta G16.
Young hotshot Michael Lyons had got the Derek Bell trophy race in his pocket having led from the start in his Lola T400 until the very last lap when he slowed with a mechanical problem. This allowed Nick Fleming to grab victory in his Ralt RT1 while Michael crossed the line in 3rd place in the pit lane. Neil Glover finished 2nd in his Formula 5000 Lola T330/2.
The final championship race of the year for the club was held for 70’s Roadsports as the sun was setting and gave a Morgan 1-2 with Richard Plant winning from Paul Conway, both driving a Plus 8.
© Simon and Janet Wright.
