Goodwood 72nd Members Meeting

Between 1948 and 1966, the Members' Meetings were held every few months, with the era's finest drivers descending on Sussex for the benefit of British Automobile Racing Club members. This year, the limited-entry affair drew more than 20,000 spectators to the resurrected event – which several attendees likened to a 'distilled crowd' Revival meeting, along with the added bonus of more liberal racing categories, including those for post-1966 machines. Of these, the Longtail Le Mans cars and Turbo F1 cars were led on their very high speed demonstrations laps by DK supplied F40s, there could be no better course car for this purpose!

In total the DK presence numbered seven cars, besides the two aforementioned F40s we were also delighted to provide Goodwood with 1960 TT winning Rob Walker 250 GT SWB, which Stirling Moss once again drove around the circuit, this time however just a demonstration lap. Further to these cars the DK 1963 E-Type, 500 TRC, Maserati 250F ad Ford GT40 were to be raced.

The E-Type featured in the Saturday night's highlight race, the "Moss Trophy". This race saw Pre-1963 GT cars fight for victory in a one hour two-driver format with James and Jeremy Cottingham sharing the DK E-type. The extremely competitive grid including Jackie Oliver and Gary Pearson in a Competition Ferrari 250 SWB, the very fast Aston Martin DB4 GT of Hadfield and Friedrichs, the Ferrari "Breadvan" piloted by Rob Hall and new owner Martin Halusa and many other very competitive machines. The E-Type qualified in a remarkable 3rd place for the dramatic race which commenced in daylight and finished in almost complete darkness. James started the race and drove the "E" superbly keeping pace with the leaders and leading the race at points until the driver change. Jeremy took the car over from James and managed to reel in the Ferrari "Breadvan" however the pace of the hugely fast Friedrichs/Hadfield DB4GT inevitably overtook the "E" and a resulting third place finish is a spectacular result, the fastest E-Type by a considerable margin.

James was also racing on Sunday in the ex Scuderia Bear GT40. The GT40 has quickly become a favourite at Goodwood, most likely due to a combination of very committed driving and the presence of the popular bear. The GT40's race was the Surtees Trophy, which was dominated by Mclaren test driver Chris Goodwin who drove away in the McLaren M1B leading a somewhat lonely race from Flag to finish. However the battle for 2nd to 5th was far more exciting with the Lola T70 of Jon Minshaw, the M1B of Chris Drake, James Cottingham in the GT40 and the Huffaker Genie of Pier Tonetti. These four cars seemed to swap places almost every lap, remarkably the seemingly outclassed GT40 kept pace with the Mclarens and Lolas and a fourth place finish is another remarkable result for car and driver.

Simon Diffey piloted the DK restored "CM5" extremely well in the Brabham Trophy, the car which has never been raced in its lifetime and has also had very little running time following an 18 month total restoration at DK Engineering and so first priority, as always, was to ensure the car behaved well and finished the race around what can be (especially for a new car) a very challenging circuit. We are thrilled that not only did the car run without fault throughout the race but it finished as the 2nd 250F (out of 5 250Fs) and 7th in class. The car's success and indeed the invitation to attend such an event mean that interest in purchasing the car is growing. The car will receive a post-event check over in our workshops and will be reading to compete again later in the year with its new owner. http://www.dkeng.co.uk/ferrari-sales/388/Blue_Chip_and_Competition_Cars/Maserati_250F.html

We are also delighted that the LIster Knobbly currently offered for sale on the DK site, won a rivetting Salvadori Trophy at the hands of Andrew Smith. http://www.dkeng.co.uk/ferrari-sales/332/Blue_Chip_and_Competition_Cars/Lister_Chevrolet.html

Photos Provded by Tim Scott and James Mann