Following on from the GP thread I thought it would be a good idea to pump up the nostalgia with some caht about the none championship F1 events. The following are some of my favourite Oulton Park moments:

1961 - Gold Cup - Moss in the Ferguson
1963 - Gold Cup - Jim Clark in mesmeric form as he ran away from a top class field
1968 - Gold Cup - 3 works Ferraris!!!
1971 - Rothmans International - Reine Wisell in the Lotus-Pratt & Whitney 56B

That's started the ball rolling, now I'll start to think about the RoC & the Daily Express meetings!!!

It has to be the 1978 International Trophy at Silverstone for me. My first experience of attending a race in the flesh and it was a wet, windy, cold and miserable day spent at an exposed airfield in the middle of nowhere.



For some reason I loved it

Well because of the rarity factor , Chris Amon winning Daily Express Trophy in 1970 in two heat ?? race in a March 701 and Tom Pryce at 1974 Race or Champions , saw them both and many more !!!!

That was a race and a half. Hunt did that on the warm up lap and then again in the race and was promptly clobbered by Andrettis new Lotus. I was marshalling on the outside of Abbey at the Farm and we were busy all day with cars sliding off on the grass and taking an age to stop. We were trying to bump start Ronnie Peterson but as soon we got him slightly moving he dropped the clutch. We finally got him going after he was given a stiff lecture on what to do! It was one of those races that anything could of happened. Daly leading in the Hesketh until he lost his visor and finally Rosberg winning in the Theadore as he kept it on the black bits more than anyone else.

Another one that stands out is the race of Champions also in the wet in 74 I think and that pass By Jacky Ickx around the outside of Lauda

The '78 International Trophy was... unusual, to say the least but for me there can be only one;

1967 RACE of CHAMPIONS!

I went primarily to see my hero race that day but he had been inconsiderate enough to crash at Goodwood a few weeks earlier. Mostly it was Clark dominated, the weather was not good to start with and it got worse as the day went on, but it has a place in my heart because it was the very first motor race I ever attended and the finish was rather good!



The 1962 International Trophy!

PS. For some perverse reason I have a lingering image in my head of the sopping wet (mud 'n grass) car park as my father and I trudged back to the family Austin A40 at the end on the day. Several bewhiskered chaps in duffle coats struggling to get traction in assorted Armstong Siddeleys, Rovers, Astons, Jags, Healeys etc and an Austin Chummy, all 9 cwt of it, skipping effortlessly across the quagmire!

Do Aurora races count ?

Why not!

I am not sure which year (possbily 1975) when Jacky Ickx caught up with Niki Lauda and overtook him on the outside of Druids?

I have heard a lot of stories about it and it did sound like a very good race.

Difficult to pick one out of so many that I went to but Graham Hill's last F1 win at the 1971 International Trophy has to be one of the most enjoyable.

David

Why not GP do Brasil 1972?
Or the unforgettable "1973 VIII Daily Mail Race of Champions": the Gethin´s Chevron victory!
Or the politic race "GP Presidente Emílio Garrastazu Médici" in Brasilia" (1974) ?


Happy a new year
SS

"A dobradinha" (1º and 2º) of the Fittipaldi´s car (F5A) with G.Edwards and Bernard de Dryver in the 1979 Race of Champions...


SS.

Tom Pryce. 1975. My first motor race. Magical........

Of course, all of these things were merely on paper to me...

But the one that grabbed my attention was the GP at Solitude. Especially the one in which FJ led Clark in the rain.

I agree with you Michael, it was mesmerizing. I vividly remember being sat on the family 'grandstand' at Stowe (which consisted of two stepladders and three planks of wood) and the rain just pouring off us, the taste of my dad's 'special' coffee (heavily laced with scotch, or was it scotch slightly diluted with coffee?), the sound of the DFVs crackling, the cold and the mud, the amusement/bemusement at seeing what looked like half the field spinning off at Abbey and Derek Daly leading in a Hesketh... And who was this "Keke" bloke anyway? My god, what car control he possessed!
I know the the carnage caused in this event was later used as one excuse to finish off non championship races, but at least the International Trophy , as we knew it , went out with a bang and not a whimper!
Happy days.

I remember a cassette I bought of this meeting which featured a conversation in the Team Lotus camper. If memory serves Colin Chapman comes in and says something along the lines of "Some bloke called Roseburg is leading!".

I was out at Stowe and to sit and listen to Keke playing the throttle as he slithered through the corner is still fresh to this day - a truely wonderful drive in appalling conditions.

Now you mention it I do remember a Lotus skating, seemingly quite gracefully, across the grass opposite where we were standing on the inside of Abbey. It seemed to travel a long way!!

Mario may well have been about to head towards you in this photo!!

Wasn't it wonderful the way some little European events would draw fields...

Enna for one, and then there was Syracuse. Seppi won there, right? That's enough to make it immortal!

Yep thats it!

There was a river running across the track at the entrance to Abbey.

Hunt's car was parked on the grass. He'd just got out and Andretti just slithered into it with a hell of a thump. James' language afterwards was interesting to say the least!

Well he never was much of a Mario fan !

1961 Solitude GP where Ireland, Gurney and Bonnier fighted all the race like dogs for a bone! With one lap to go, Bonnier and Gurney baulked Ines and obliged him to do more than a hundred yards at full speed on the grass. Chapman said: "he'll win or we'll not see him alive!". I was there and Ireland won by 1/10 of second in a complete silence from the spectators. 1961 was not a good year for Porsche...

Wasn't that the race where the organisers hoisted the green, white and orange for Innes after having run the German flag up during the race in anticipation of a Porsche win 'cos they thought that his surname meant that he was Irish?

I never had the occasion to see any of the non-championship races.

But the image of John Surtees opposite locking his Surtees TS7 at the 1970 Oulton Park Gold Cup, just as he was coming over a crest, seems to be locked in my memory.
I've never seen the picture again, and I haven't saved it.

found this though,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThTVeaP9Yo8

I never got to a Gold Cup as I was a southerner at the time, but saw quite a few at Brands and Silverstone.

The Race of Champions and International Trophy often threw up the odd result as teams occasionally put in a lower order driver to test them out and the inclusion of F5000 added to the mix. The weather on occasion was to British standards. It snowed at Silverstone one race. Gethin won at Brands in 73 with a F5000 Chevron and the Theadore that Rosberg used at Silverstone, I believe, was built around an F2 Ralt RT1.

Good days

One of my very first memories was being very wet at Snetterton in 1964, I was very young. The Daily Mirror F1 race I think it was, the only thing I remember about it apart from being wet was my father pointing out Graham Hill in the BRM in the paddock. I think this was the one when he crashed in the pouring rain, although I don't recall anything of the race. I couldn't imagine it was as wet as Silverstone in '78 though!

Oh I don't know, Andrew. I wasn't there but I recall pictures in Auspo made it look like they were virtually racing in the dark.

The thing is, tyres were narrower then so it was 'easier' to deal with the flooded track.

Does Euroboss or TGP count?

Ah yes , that beasty thing !

IIRC Keke's first (F1) win ?

1965 ROC, that man Gurney pushed Jim into a very rare mistake along Bottom Straight, nearly in front of where dad's Cortina was parked.......Spence got the race on aggregate, and I think this may have been the 1st time I noticed Dan's name at Druids, Jim had it in the bag :\

1967 ROC, that man Gurney again, and the engines from Rye Harbour, a great day for Dan

1968, ROC, Bruce's day in the very pretty M7A, what a legacy he bestowed........

Silverstone 27 April 1968

Kiwis 1-2-3!!

I think we should draw the line there thank you!

Denny, Bruce and Chris and those McLarens were soo pretty

Wow, same here (and first race I saw was Tony Brise in the Formula Atlantic support race).

No wonder I got hooked.

Loved the 83 RoC as well.

Geoff

I always find it funny that a motorsport legend like Chapman had, apparently, never heard of Rosberg or his ilk. So blinkered!

Had you?

Yes, but maybe CABC never had the time to read Autosport like the REAL race fans did.

I had seen Rosberg driving in Super Vee in previous seasons and always thought he had potential.

However at Silverstone everything just fell into place with all the "star" drivers falling off! Probably an advantage having the Theodore!

Possibly having a LOT of talent helped, too!

I am bumping this, to see if anyone still has the picture I mean.

The Silverstone International Trophy always did it for me. In fact in the early days when Dad took me, it was merely a matter of “Going to Silverstone”. I didn’t know, and I probably didn’t care, whether it was a GP or not. I saw my great hero Moss, the only person who mattered to short trousered me, in 250F and Vanwall…but until the British GP of 58 I struggle to recall which meeting was which. A bit later on, I frequently went with various of chums to both the International Trophy and the Race of Champions at Brands. They always were great to attend early in the year, as a taster to the GPs ahead. Ah, those Jet propelled Eagles!

I have especially vivid memories of the 71 International Trophy, but I have posted them at length before. Perhaps some more recent arrivees might like to look…

http://forums.autosport.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73154

After I posted the above on TNF originally, I was contacted by Chris Ellard who was in the process of putting together his book “The Forgotten Races”. To my delight, he used my Stewart crash photos (see link) in the book, as well as one from the inside of Copse in which I ‘m convinced can see me with my Zenit, standing next to TNFer Mike Bennett

For me it would be the 1971 Questor Grand Prix at Ontario Motor Speedway (RIP) in California. Just the sheer novelty and zaniness of the concept (and total impossibility of staging such an event today) put it high on my list......F1 teams transported all the way to the Pacific coast to race against a totally out-gunned F5000 field on a hybrid oval/road circuit. Speaking of Mario, he turned in one of his virtuoso performances, winning both heats.

Jack.

On the BBC coverage of that 1978 race (which I think Speed Channel broadcast a little while back) , Rosberg's amazing car control really shows up. It's an absolute joy to watch.
As for the conditions... The race wouldn't even have started in these days! As such the fond memories and heroics would never have been allowed to happen...
As we said, Happy Days!

I would love to see that

Maldwyn, if you have Sky, there is a channel (442 - ESPN Classic) that regularly shows old F.1 races.

I have seen the '78 Int. Trophy fairly recently and they are always repeating things.

Yes! The Questor Grand Prix! The never-to-be-forgotten howl of the Matra!
Sorry for all the exclamation points but living in Los Angeles meant very few F1 events of any kind until the Long Beach GP. We had a F1 drought from the U.S. GP in 1960 until the Questor in 1971.
BTW, does anyone remember what a Questor was/is?
Anton

Questor was (perhaps still is) a conglomerate. I don't know how many businesses they were in, but conglomerates were all the rage in the 70's. I was at the race and was in complete awe of the cars and the driver line-up.

Jack.