Lombard North Central Formula Three Championship

Oulton Park, 28 Sep 1974

All cars are 2-litre F3 unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. GRD 374 [094-F3] (Alex Dias Ribeiro): New to Alex Dias Ribeiro in July 1974, replacing his earlier car crashed at Cadwell Park, and raced in British F3 in 1974 with Hollywood sponsorship. Ribeiro joined the March Engineering F3 team for 1975, so sold his GRD and transporter to Brian Henton. Henton ran the GRD as a hire car for Derek Cook at Monaco in 1975 and for Mike Tyrrell at Brands Hatch a week later, after which it was sold via Mike Gue to the US, where it was bought by Jim Fikse (Seattle, WA). Fikse converted the car to Formula C, with a 1100 cc Cosworth BDJ engine, but crashed it in an early race outing and it needed to be extensively rebuilt, reportedly with a new monocoque. It was repaired in time to be used by Mike Gilbert to win the FC class at the 1976 SCCA Runoffs. It was sold to Peter Gates in March 1977, who raced it in NEDiv FC until the end of 1978. According to the logbook, later owners are Modjean, Jaworski, Slyvester and Greene. Then bought by Bob Darcey (Lakewood, CO) in 1999.
2. Elden Mk16 [155/16001/73] (Jorge Koechlin): Completed for Gordon Smiley to drive in the 1974 British Formula Atlantic series, using Hart BDA engines and entered by Elden International Racing. After missing two races in June, Smiley made his debut in the car at Thruxton on 7 July, qualifying ninth and finishing fifth. He was described by Autosport as "unbelievably hairy" at the Brands Hatch race two weeks later, and then crashed at Silverstone the following weekend. The car was next seen at Brands Hatch in September, when it had been fitted with a Ford twin cam engine and converted to Formula 3 specification for Peruvian driver Jorge Koechlin to drive, with backing from the Bondurant Racing School. Koechlin had been driving a Elden-Scholar Mk10C in Formula Ford with some success until a massive accident at Brands Hatch in May. He competed in four F3 races in September and October. It was then converted back to Formula Atlantic specification and sold to Bruce Kramer (Rockford, Illinois). Describing the car as an "Elden PH75-B", he raced it in SCCA Nationals in 1975 but failed to qualify from his heat in his only Pro race, at Trois-Rivières. It was retained by Kramer for 1976 and 1977, again appearing in SCCA Nationals but without notable success. He was 11th in Central Division in 1976 but failed to score a point in 1977. Subsequent history unknown, but in January 2009 'capri' on 10 Tenths said he had the Mk16 in the Chicago area, his father having "purchased it in the early 1980s in pieces".
3. GRD 374 [089-F3?] (Marcos Moraes): New to Team Brasil for Marcos Moraes to race in British F3 in 1974. Also raced by his elder brother Luis Correira Moraes after Marcos Moraes was injured while testing. The car was identified as 089-F3 during 1974. Sold for 1975 to Doug Bassett and continued in British F3, but identified now as 090-F3. Bassett reappeared briefly at the start of 1976 in this car. Subsequent history unknown.

Sources

Note that the identification of individual cars in these results is based on the material presented elsewhere in this site and may in some cases contradict the organisers' published results.

These British Formula 3 results have been compiled by Chris Townsend using the main British magazines Autosport and Motoring News but also the US magazine On Track which carried surprisingly good coverage of the British series.

All comments, clarifications, corrections and additions are most welcome. Please email Allen (allen@oldracingcars.com) if you can help in any way with our research.