V.S.C.C. Silverstone Meeting (July 21st)

This meeting attracted an excellent crowd, remembering that the Grand Prix at Aintree was on the same day. The main event of the day was the 50-km. Boulogne Trophy race. Margulies, making one of his rare appearances with the ex-Bira Maserati, led away from the start but very soon Sid Day, driving his own E.R.A. R6B (having taken over the Hon. Patrick Lindsay’s entry, as the E.R.A. “Remus” had suffered a hub derangement in practice), was in the lead. He was hotly pursued by Martin Morris driving his first circuit race in the very smart ex-Hull 2-litre E.R.A. On the 10th of the 19 laps Margulies, when in third place, drew into the pits as, he said, he was not satisfied with the way his car was running. The order then became Day, now some distance ahead of Morris, followed by Waller’s E.R.A. and Schellenberg who was having his customary wrestling match with the Barnato-Hassan, they finished in this order, with Schellenberg deservedly taking the Vintage Class. On the very first lap the E.R.A.-Delage had gone harmlessly into the ditch at Woodcote.

Later in the day the E.R.A.s came out again for the 5-lap All-Comers’ Scratch race, Lindsay now driving Day’s car. This time Morris took the lead but, on the third lap, it is thought due to a locking front brake, he hit the marshals’ post at Beckett’s and very unfortunately two officials were fatally injured. Lindsay went on to win comfortably from Waller, and Bertie Brown in his E.R.A. Once again Schellenberg was a splendid fourth, again winning the Vintage Class.

The meeting had opened traditionally with a 12-lap Inter-Team Relay Race, which was led for a long time by the Singer team, until the faster cars overtook them. The final result was a win for the Riley team from the Bentleys, with the Frazer Nash team third. The rest of the meeting was composed of 5-lap handicap, and scratch races, the results of which are given below. The second 5-lap Handicap included a great many vintage light cars, amongst them a single carburetter A.B.C. with a fine assortment of b.e. tyres. It was won appropriately by Warden’s 1925 9/20 Humber tourer. It was pleasing to see the flat twin two-stroke Sima-Violet in action. The previous race had been won by Russ-Turner’s 1937 4 1/4-litre open Bentley, which has two Centric superchargers. The Merrydown Trophy was secured by St. John’s AC.-engined Frazer Nash, which managed to keep ahead of the 4 1/2-litre Bentleys of Morley and Williamson. Easy victories were secured in their races by Hine’s 1924 3-litre Bentley and Harding’s 1926 Amilcar Six with AG100 Villiers supercharger. The industrious Arnold-Forster had rebuilt his Delage since it had broken a con.-rod at Oulton Park and it was nice to see it running strongly, now with Bentley rods, a 5 -to-1 compression ratio, and with the body painted a handsome blue instead of the Brooklands finish in which it appeared previously. – W. B.