The Roaring Season

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There was a piece about the A30/35 class on a show on SKY Sport recently. It was created by Julius Thurgood as a budget prices one-make historic category, whereby people go out and purchase a standard A30/35, then buy a kit from Thurgood's company which is supposed to make all the cars equal on performance.

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It's that man, Tiff Needell again... Last set from this grid, before we get to one of my favourite grids. The Goodwood Trophy.
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Not in the race programme, but thanks to the great definition on the full sized image, Frank Stippler.

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No excuses here for more than 1 pic of many cars. Practice was dry (Friday) but this was the first race up on Saturday - and it started raining lap one and that rain remained for most of the day. I hope you enjoy this set as much as I do.

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Love it when you can see the driver 'driving'!










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Ray, could you please tell me, what is 'MG' about the car in pic 1010.........the twin OHC engine, or anything else that I can see.....other than the badge, doesnt seem to be connected to MG in any way........just asking.

From the interweb:

"From what I can determine, it seems that the car was originally a MG K3 Magnette similar to the car that Tazio Nuvolari drove to win the Ards TT in 1933. The car was subsequently converted to a single-seat layout. Well-known British racer, Reg Parnell, bought this car in 1935 and raced it in British racing events. Parnell then converted it to a twin-cam engine and he raced it until 1937, when he sold the car."

[video=youtube;OOW0IbvvFok]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOW0IbvvFok[/video]

"Parnell came from a family which ran a garage business in Derby. In 1933, he was a spectator when Donington Park held its first motor race, and he decided to try the sport. By 1935, he bought an old 2-litre Bugatti single-seater for just £25. It broke its rear axle in the paddock at its first meeting, but buying spare parts for the Bugatti was too expensive, so it was replaced with a MG Magnette K3. Parnell had secured wins at both Brooklands and Donington Park, but in 1937 he lost his licence following a practice accident for the 500 Mile race, at Brooklands. He misjudged an overtaking move on Kay Petre, when he lost control of the MG, crashing into her Austin 7 from behind, causing it to roll. She crashed badly and was seriously injured. She never raced competitively again. Although she put the incident down to ‘bad luck’, the RAC revoked Parnell’s racing license for two years. This meant that he was unable to race."

Incidentally, the car was damaged at the 2014 Goodwood meeting.

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First race up on Saturday morning and note that the stand is nowhere near full. Always pays to get to a race meeting early if you want a decent view. I noted that the grid girls did the same row each time, so #1 was always the same girl. I observe things like that...



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Ray,
Your photos are fantastic. I hope you don't mind this input of why Reg Parnell got in trouble over this incident.
Poor Kay Petre was at the wrong place at the wrong time in car # 3.
""Parnell came from a family which ran a garage business in Derby. In 1933, he was a spectator when Donington Park held its first motor race, and he decided to try the sport. By 1935, he bought an old 2-litre Bugatti single-seater for just £25. It broke its rear axle in the paddock at its first meeting, but buying spare parts for the Bugatti was too expensive, so it was replaced with a MG Magnette K3. Parnell had secured wins at both Brooklands and Donington Park, but in 1937 he lost his licence following a practice accident for the 500 Mile race, at Brooklands. He misjudged an overtaking move on Kay Petre, when he lost control of the MG, crashing into her Austin 7 from behind, causing it to roll. She crashed badly and was seriously injured. She never raced competitively again. Although she put the incident down to ‘bad luck’, the RAC revoked Parnell’s racing license for two years. This meant that he was unable to race."



(Ken Hyndman )

Thanks Ken. I hadn't even heard of the car before 2012, when it appeared at the Monaco Historics. Having just been to Brooklands, the day before Goodwood, the banking looks frightening today, let alone then. I believe it was constructed quite quickly and is anything but smooth - and I doubt it ever was. Brave men and women back then.

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Whoops....



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Rhys, I thought I'd already replied, but others on Windows may find this free utility very useful, for shrinking images. Called Image Resizer'.

http://www.bricelam.net/ImageResizer/

It allows you to shrink a block of pics in one go. I'm currently setting mine to 850 pixels wide. Occasionally, the image still comes out larger than this site's 185kb limit, but most are OK, having already been cropped.

I keep the originals and only shrink copies!

In Windows File Explorer, you simply select the images you want to shrink, then right click the mouse and it should come up with 'Resize pictures' as one of the options. Like Rhys, it was doing my head in before, trying to shrink them one by one in Photoshop, so I had never posted as many as I would have liked.

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Possibly the most raced and most successful historic race car ever. However, it seems that other cars may have been further developed recently, as 'Remus' (R5B) wasn't on the podium this time or even in contention. In fact, for the first time in a long, long time, there was no ERA on the podium. Mark Gillies in ERA R3A was leading at one stage, but had an off course excursion and maybe even a quick call in to the pits, before rejoining.







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A rare shot as the E Type ERA only managed this one out lap in practice. No idea what the problem was, but a portent of things to come for the ERA camp! When you consider the low number of ERAs built, the survival rate is not only impressive, but the fact that so many are still raced is even more impressive. I wonder if anyone will ever recreate the post war G Type that morphed into the Bristol Le Mans car?





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Just two sets to go in this grid.

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Not the winner though - 2nd or 3rd.

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The winner - Callum Lockie - has a unique way of jumping out of the car!



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There were several parades. The "Road to Wembley - 1966", a tribute to Sir Jack Brabham, "Return to Power (F1)" and a parade of "Goodwood Greats". Some of the parade cars were racing anyway, but some were not. A bit of a mixed bag, but an integral part of the Revival.
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