British Sprint Championship Round

Curborough, 18 Apr 1971

Notes on the cars:

1. Brabham BT35X [2] (Tony Griffiths): New to Tony Griffiths (Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands) for 1971, and fitted with a 5-litre Repco 740 V8 engine for the British Hill Climb Championship and occasional rounds of the British Sprint Championship. Won one round of each series. Retained for 1972 when Griffiths again one one round in each series. To Malcolm Dungworth (Sheffield, South Yorkshire) for 1973 when he shared it with John Cussins (Leeds, West Yorkshire). They shared the car again in 1974 and in 1975, when Cussins won a championship round at Barbon Manor, then Dungworth ran it alone in 1976 and 1977. Sold to Terry Smith in October 1977, and he raced it in the Sprint series in 1978. He raced it again in 1979, but in June he transferred the Repco engine into a March 75A/761 and the BT35X was sold to Mike Remnant in south-west England. Remnant did not race it, sticking to his BT30, and sold it to Roger Jordan who fitted a Ford twin cam and ran it in SW events from about 1981, later replacing the engine with a Rover V8. It was raced by Mark Haynes, still with the Rover V8, at Werrington Park in 1985. In 1986, Jordan sold it to Ted Walker (Dursley, Gloucestershire) who sold it to Shaun Mooney. Mooney had it restored by Simon Hadfield, fitted a Cosworth BDA, and raced it in historic racing from 1991 to 1996. In 2002, the car was sold to Japan and ran in Japanese historic events where it was noted having the name "E. Sekiya" on the side. It changed hands in 2004 and rebuilt by the Mecca racing garage at Tsukuba circuit in 2008. It was offered for sale by its Japanese owner in August 2015, and acquired by Ross Drybrough (Worthing, West Sussex). At this point it was in "F2" specification with a BDA engine. Restored and raced by Drybrough in HSCC F2 in 2022.
2. Brabham BT21A [9] (John Ravenscroft): Bought new by Tony Griffiths (Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire) and used in British hillclimbs in 1967. Retained for 1968, running a Vegantune twin-cam in the 1600cc class of the British Hill Climb Championship. Used again at the start of 1969 then sold to Chris Court, who continued to hillclimb it through the rest of 1969. Advertised by John Brown (Padiham, Lancashire) in April 1970, and again in September, still with its Vegantune engine, and then to John Ravenscroft for Sprints in 1971 and 1972, winning two rounds of the British Sprint Championship in 1972. To Richard Hartley for 1973, again being used in sprints. To Geoffrey Jackson April 1974 and then via Peter Bloore c1981-82 to Chris Crawford of ADA Engineering. During ADA's ownership, the car was rebuilt to F3 specification and raced by Mike Wilds in HSCC Historic F3. Then to Max Lane (Sydney, NSW, Australia) 1984. Retained until 1991 and then via Mike Broso (Junee, Australia) to Ron Coath (Yarralumla, Canberra, Australia) 1999. Raced regularly by Coath in historic racing until sold to Graeme Noonan (Phillip Island, Australia) August 2014.
3. Brabham BT18 [F2-44-66] (Dave Hartley): New to Clive Baker near the end of the 1966 season, after Baker had given up on the Stockbridge Racing Cooper T83 in May. Built with a Ford twin cam engine for libre racing and first reported winning a libre race very comfortably at Castle Combe at the end of August. The nearly-new car was sold to Bryan Eccles (Solihull, Warwickshire) for 1967 and fitted with a 3.5-litre Oldsmobile V8 engine for hillclimbing. Eccles won a number of events, including the Shelsley Walsh championship hillclimb in August. To Chris Cox for 1968 and used in libre racing. Then to Tony Charnell for 1969 but not seen. It returned to hillclimbing in 1970 when owned by Richard Thwaites (Dewsbury, West Yorkshire) and then in 1971 with Dave Hartley who also used the Brabham-Buick in sprints. Hartley continued to run the car regularly in the British Sprint Championship until 1975. He took class wins in Longton & District MC's Isle of Man hillclimb in 1977 and 1978. Next seen when advertised by Jim Johnston in January 1988. According to a later advertisement for the car (then called F2-42-66), it was owned after Johnstone by Peter Speakman (also the owner of F2-22-66), and was then bought back by Jim Eccles in the early 2000s. It was later sold to Simon Durling, who had it fully rebuilt and used it in the Pre-1971 racing car class. After an accident, it was sold to John Green as a project and extensively rebuilt again. Adam Sykes advertised the car in early 2023, and in May 2023 announced that it had been sold.
4. Brabham BT21 Quattro (Tony Bradwell): Originally intended for the 1968 hillclimb season for Bryan Brown, this car was built by Chas Beattie on a Brabham BT21 chassis using Tony Marsh's four-wheel drive system and powered by a 4.5-litre Oldsmobile V8 engine. The BT21 chassis could have been a very late production chassis, or a second-hand F3 car. The car was often called a BT21X, in the same way that Brabham used BT30X, BT35X and BT36X to denote hillclimb special orders, but it was definitely not the BT21X F3 car that Tim Schenken drove at the Brands Hatch Boxing Day meeting at the end of 1968. Unused by Bryan Brown and sold to Peter Blankstone (Wolverhampton) for 1969. Raced by Blankstone in hillclimbs in 1969 and 1970, finishing second in two RAC rounds in 1970. Sold to Tony Bradwell for 1971 and used in sprints and hillclimbs for another four seasons. Subsequent history unknown but unverified web sources indicate that it went from Bradwell to M. R. Chadney in 1980, to R. G. Romeril in 1983, to Graham Galliers (Shrewsbury, Shropshire) 1985, then Graham Henson (Poulton Le Fylde, Lancashire) from 1994 to 1997. Both Chadney and Romeril are Channel Island hillclimbers; Galliers and Henson also hillclimbed it. It was offered for auction by H&H in 2006 when it was claimed to be "BT21X-1" with a history starting in 1966 with Tim Schenken. This is presumably the BT21X run by Donald Duncan in Richard and Trisha Pilkington's TOPS Club events between 2003 and 2007. 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.