Caithness Car Club Hill Climb

Rumster, 26 May 1974

Notes on the cars:

1. GRD 273 [051-F2] (Doug Thomson): New to Tom Wheatcroft for driver Roger Williamson in F2 in 1973, and used as a T-car at the opening race. The two cars travelled in Wheatcroft's transporter, but at the start of the season were looked after by GRS International chief mechanic Alistair Dimmock. By June, the cars were run by the team's own mechanics, Rick Olivant, formerly with Surtees, and Trevor Foster from Gerard Racing. If it is correct that chassis 052 was destroyed in Williamson's accident in practice at Nivelles-Baulers, then 051 was the team's unused spare after Wheatcroft bought a new March 732. To Doug Thomson for 1974, and fitted with a Ford BDA for Formula Atlantic and hillclimbs. Badly damaged when crashed in practice at Oulton Park in October 1974, and Thomson recalls that the tub was a write off. He acquired a new tub from GRD over the winter and rebuilt the car. It was then sold early in 1975 as a rolling chassis to dealer Mike Gue, who Doug believes sold the car to someone in South Africa. It appears however, that the car went to North America, where it was next seen being raced by Russell Thomson (Vancouver, BC, Canada) in the ICSCC's Formula B class in 1979. It then passed to Graeme Hutton (Vancouver, BC) who raced it in one late-season 1979 event and at least once in 1980, again in ICSCC Formula B. Bought from Hutton in 1990 by Robert Morris (Seattle, WA) and stored at his workshop since then.
2. Hillman Imp (Barrogill Angus): Barrogill Angus (Thurso, Scotland) raced a "Shannon Imp" in Scottish hillclimbs from 1972 to 1974, a Hillman Imp with Shannon-tuned 998cc Imp engine in the under 1000cc special saloon class. In 1973, the car was said to be ex-Tony Charnell (MN 21 Jun 1973 p28).
3. Brabham BT35 [44] (Jim Campbell): Husband-and-wife hillclimbers Gray and Agnes Mickel (Glasgow, Scotland) bought a new Brabham BT35 for hillclimbs in 1972. It was fitted with a Hart twin-cam and first appeared at the Kinkell Braes hill climb in March 1972. Retained by the Mickels for 1973 and used in British and Scottish championship hillclimbs, acquiring a Hart BDA engine some time during that year. The car was advertised by the Mickels in November 1973 and was bought by Jim Campbell (Bothwell, Scotland) 1974 who raced it until 1978. It was then used by Chris Dowson (Pershore, Worcestershire) in hillclimbs in 1979 and 1980. Fred Edwards (Warboys, Cambridgeshire) bought it in 1985 and used it in Monoposto and HSCC events until 1991 but it was then unused until bought by David Irwin (Evergreen, Colorado) in 2001. Irwin still had it in 2004. It was restored by J&L restorations and had moved to Don Roose (Bainbridge Island, Washington) by 2005. Advertised by Roose in 2007. Sold to Allen Nicholas (California) in December 2009 and used in west coast historic events. Sold by Nicholas to Peter McLaughlin (New Hampshire) in December 2014 but not raced. Sold to David Smoker (South Australia) in April 2016.

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.

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.

Individual sources for this event

MN 13 Jun 1974 p22. No report found in Autosport.