OldRacingCars.com

British Sprint Championship Round

Woodvale, 24 May 1970

ResultsTime 
1 Patsy Burt 4.4-litre McLaren M3A [2] - Oldsmobile Traco V8
(see note 1)
2 Richard Thwaites 3.5-litre Brabham BT18 [F2-44-66] - Buick V8
(see note 2)
3 Tony Harrison (sports racing) 4.7-litre Lola T70L Mk2 [SL71/23] - Ford V8
Qualifying
Qualifying information not available

Notes on the cars:

  1. McLaren M3A [2] (Patsy Burt): Built for Patsy Burt (Surrey) and used in hillclimb and sprint events from 1966 to 1970. As well as dozens of Ladies Awards, Burt won the Brighton Speed Trials outright in this car in 1968 and also used it to take a number of national quarter-mile and half-mile speed records at Elvington airfield, Yorkshire, in 1967 and 1968. She also competed in European events in the M3A, notably at St Ursanne-Les Rangiers, Sierre-Montana-Crans and Faucille in 1966. In 1970, she competed in the new RAC British Sprint Championship and won the title, the first woman to win a British national motor sporting title. She retired after 1970 and the McLaren was also retired and sent on loan to the Donington Museum where it remained for many decades. After Burt's death in 2001, the car was sold by Ron Smith, Burt's manager, mechanic and later husband, via H&H Auctions in November 2008. Sold to Julia de Baldanza (Cheltenham, Gloucestershire) and raced by her at Goodwood in July 2010.
  2. Brabham BT18 [F2-44-66] (Richard Thwaites): 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.

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.