British Sprint Championship Round

Curborough, 12 Sep 1976

Notes on the cars:

1. March 702 [6] (Peter Fisk): Although given the number 702/6 by March, this was the development F2 car built using the very first Arch Motors frame. It raced just once in 1970 when Howden Ganley appeared in it at Mantorp Park in August. At the start of 1971, it was fitted with a Vegantune twin cam for Formula Atlantic, and was driven by David Morgan at the Mallory Park round in March, taking pole position and winning. He was second in the next race at Castle Combe, but then the car was advertised by March, and bought by John Nicholson, who used it for the rest of that season. Advertised by Nicholson (Ashford, Middlesex) in August 1972. Bought from Nicholson in October 1972 by Martin Steele (Faringdon, Oxfordshire) and used in sprints in 1973 and the first half of 1974. Sold in July 1974 to Peter Fisk (Cambridge) who raced it in speed events from 1974 to 1979. The car was fitted with a BDA engine, and Fisk sometimes shared with Robert Glass, also of Cambridge. Fisk advertised the car in October 1980 and sold it back to Steele in March 1981. Steele restored it and used it in UK historic racing in 1985 and 1986. Retained until sold in November 1998 to Mike Scott (Exeter, Devon) who drove it in FORCE events in 2003, and later appeared with it in Masters events in 2006. Sold in 2009 to Satoshi Onishi (Miharuno, Japan) and used by him in Japanese historic events.
2. Brabham BT16/21B (John Taylor): In 1976, John Taylor (North Petherton, Somerset) ran a Brabham BT16/21B in sprints. The car had been fitted with a 3-litre Ford Essex V6 engine. He advertised it was a BT21B in November 1976 but appeared again with it at a sprint at Oulton Park in April 1977. It was then sold to Eike Wellhausen (Chesterfield, Derbyshire), then described as a former Jaguar E-Type driver but now better known as a Lister racer. Eike understood it to be a Brabham BT23C and Autosport described the car as a BT23C that had originally been built for an American who had intended installing a Chevy V8 but had never raced. Wellhausen replaced the standard Essex engine with a fully-tuned version and raced the car in libre events at Mallory Park, Donington Park and Silverstone from 1977 to 1979. By 1979 the V6 had been replaced with a Hart BDA. Eike recalls selling it to "a London jeans manufacturer who raced other single seaters". Subsequent history unknown.
3. March 712M/75B (John Colley): In 1975, John Colley and Rhoddy Harvey Bailey bought a March 712M and associated parts from Mike Sullivan of Riverside Garage in Salisbury. This was said to be the spares from Sullivan's main 1974 Formula Atlantic car, and came with Falconer bodywork. As they put this together, they found it was incomplete, so returned to Sullivan and bought another car, one that he had recently reskinned and had been run by a female driver. Like the first car they bought, this was said to be a 712M, and was understood by Colley to be the ex-Tom Walkinshaw 712M-8. After their first purchase had been sold on, Colley and Harvey Bailey completed the latter car with 1975 March bodywork and ran it in Formula Atlantic, libre and sprints over the next four seasons. Colley added his own version of forward-facing rollhoop supports, normally seen only on cars built from 1973 onwards, and reinforced the back of the chassis after it was found to be flexing. It was sold to someone who planned to use it for hillclimbs. 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.

The British Sprint Championship results were originally provided by Paul Parker and Steve Wilkinson and are based on material drawn from Motoring News, Autosport and Speedscene magazines plus results sheets and programmes provided by former competitors and by the organising clubs.

The identification of individual cars is based on the Formula 1, Formula 2, Formula 5000 and Formula Atlantic research work presented elsewhere on the site.

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.