This is what happens when you trawl through the old photo's
Published: 19 Jan 2018 updated: 21 Feb 2018
Memories Come Flooding Back-
I hope you are all busy in the
garage preparing for 2018. I have a bit to do still. The work needed on 6VC
after the Portuguese Rally Historico is almost complete. I have a bit to do on
the Blue TR5 but not too much. The starter motor didn't like being flooded on
the Barbados Carnival rally and has seized up. Hopefully a slight strip will
cure that. We finally got the car back from Barbados after a heart stopping
moment. 12 hours before I was to set out to collect the car from Geest in
Portsmouth, I had a call to say the stevedores could not find the container!!
Aghhhh! It turned out that even though all the paperwork was in order, the car
and container were still on the dock in Bridgetown Barbados. Thankfully it was
promptly put on the next boat and I picked it up last week.
It is interesting to reflect on how things were years ago. And how safety for both spectators and competitors had moved on enormously. However there is a charm about the frivolity which prevailed back in the seventies and although in some cases we should be glad to be alive, I am glad I was there.
This series of photographs are from a sprint at Goodwood which I can only assume was about 1974 as they were in an album with other photos marked as being taken that year.
The first is the paddock. We
know this because there is a sign saying so. My car TKR49 is number 47, no
fancy numbers here, just a white wash paint stick. Note the long hair and
opposing short shorts!
The second photo shows us lined up. We would line up on the start/finish line 6 at a time and be set off in short order to ensure the first car didn't come around before the last had set off. We do seem to have seat belts but no roll over bar and bare arms.
The third Photo show me rushing
up the main straight from the start. The restaurant looks straight out of the
Second World War, probably because it had changed little from its use in that
period. Spectators are perched on the grass bank. It would have been
pandemonium if something had gone wrong with a car after exiting the chicane at
the end of the lap.
The fourth and final photo is of the chicane which is a little less sophisticated than today. The Shell building is quite evident but look at those spectators sunning themselves on the grass at the exit of the first part of the chicane. Makes me shudder to think of the consequences of a car going off just there, but having been there I can tell you we simply didn't think like that at the time.
Now have a look at this lap (by clicking on the You Tube link) when I was in my beta from 2014 (40 years later) and see if you can spot a few similarities in the circuit.
Neil Revington
