Inside line: Ron Maydon
The man behind the new Grand Prix Masters Series reveals some novel plans
What is your own racing background?
I’m a hopeless driver! I saw a Cooper T86C under a tarpaulin in the US which fired my interest, and I bought it. As a boy I was a big fan of Rindt and Clark. I’ve been racing the Cooper for three years, but I leave the really competitive stuff to others.
What are your aims for the Grand Prix Masters series?
I’ve enjoyed racing with FORCE and TOP, but my perspective is from the back of the grid. I want a series that is more for the glory of the cars than the drivers. I want to look after the whole field and show the cars off to their best. I hope that it will be more interesting for the spectators.
Which cars are you catering for?
We’ll focus on the 1966-78 F1 era and include Tasman cars, but not F2 or F5000 cars. We’ll have classes for the pre-wing cars, and a staggered start to give the pre-wing cars a big lead to begin with.
What are your immediate plans?
We’ve got a whole raft of ideas. We want to put rev-limiters on the DFVs to take them back to how they were in the day, run rolling starts to protect the cars and have two grids with a time delay. That means two safety cars; it may not work, but we want to try.
How does the rest of the season look?
We’ve got to have good tracks and good events, with Iwo races at each. The Pau entry is fabulous and others are coming along nicely. We’ve just confirmed an August Donington date with GpC.