"MOTOR SPORT" Brooklands Trophy Goes To Tony Hegbourne

The pleasant, unruffled atmosphere which prevails at Goodwood normally was upset on September 22nd, when the final races counting towards the MOTOR SPORT Trophy were run off. At the commencement of proceedings Tony Hegbourne (Lola) and David Eva (M.G. Twin-cam) were level with 23 points, followed by Veedol Trophy winner Bob Burnard (A.C. Ace) on 17 points, these three drivers each having two races during the afternoon, Eva and Burnard meeting in two races for production sports cars while Hegbourne was up against some stiff opposition in the sports/racing category, because a number of drivers who are normally seen only at Trade-supported meetings were in action at Goodwood.

During morning practice a Mini was rolled with no injury to the driver but later on C. J. Hicks ran off the road in Renny’s Lotus XI at Woodcote, the car overturning and inflicting such severe injuries to the driver that he succumbed shortly afterwards.

Enough Formula Junior cars turned up for this meeting so they had a race of their own instead of being lumped in with the sports racers. Bill Bradley led off in his Cooper-Ford pursued by Griffin’s Lotus-Ford, Brooke’s Lotus-Ford and Fenning’s Lola-Ford. On lap two Bradley still led but Griffin stopped at the chicane with something trailing under the car and Fenning moved up to pass Brooke and set off after Bradley. He closed up gradually until the cars were almost touching until, on the penultimate lap, the Cooper hit the chicane fencing and Bradley wisely slowed down with bits of fencing sticking out of the bodywork, leaving Fenning a comfortable winner. The 1,100-c.c. sports car race looked to be a Lotus 23 benefit but Tony Hegbourne drives his Lola incredibly fast and on the first lap coming into Woodcote he was fourth behind Mike Beckwith, Peter Boshier-Jones and S. A. Fox’s Lola. He passed the Lola going into tho corner and Fox spun at high speed, receiving the usual B.A.R.C. one-minute penalty. By lap three Hegbourne had caught Boshier-Jones and he set about catching Beckwith, a task which proved to be beyond even Hegbourne, although he broke the class lap record at 94.32 m.p.h. However, second place gave him three points towards the MOTOR SPORT Trophy. ,

A five-lap scratch race for Lotus Sevens and the like saw a good scrap between Manfield’s D.R.W. and McArthur’s Lotus Seven which Manfield won when McArthur spun at Madgwick. He restarted and finished fourth but the one-minute penalty dropped him well back. In the marque scratch race Burnard and Eva came together, this race losing some of its interest because of the recent R.A.C. ban on Le Mans-type starts. Burnard got away well in his white Ace-Bristol but Eva was engaged in a furious dice with Tom Entwistle’s T.V.R. It took Eva four laps to dispose of the quick T.V.R. by which time Burnard was well in the lead. However, Eva had already expressed the intention of opting for a safe second behind Burnard and it looked as if this was how it would finish, but on lap nine Burnard’s clutch gave out, giving Eva a comfortable victory from D. S. Jones’ TR3 and Gill’s Morgan. The Daimler SP250s were very slow but looked safe whereas J. Dangerfield’s Ace-Bristol was slow and looked dangerous, the driver managing to spin it going into the chicane.

The position on the MOTOR SPORT Trophy was still open at this point with Eva having 27 points and Hegbourne 26 with the Lola driver looking to have a difficult race in the next 10-lapper against the big sports cars. Beckwith’s Lotus 23 led again and Hegbourne quickly disposed of Boshier-Jones again to get second place but Dizzy Addicott, driving his Buick-compact-engined Lotus started from the back of the grid, threaded his way through to fourth place on lap one, third on lap three and past Hegbourne into second on lap seven. He gained rapidly on Beckwith but could not quite catch him. Both he and Beckwith broke their respective class lap records, something which is not often done at a Club meeting.

The first of the handicap races saw Bunce’s 100E-engined Tornado leading for four of the five laps but Doc. Merfield came thundering through the field in his 1½-litre Anglia, brushing aside Jaguars, Lotus Elites and Rapiers in his rapid rush to the finish line. Cave’s hot A40 was second in front of Dunce.

David Eva appeared for the next handicap, muttering dire threats about the ancestry of handicappers as he was on scratch mark, having to thread his way through eighteen cars to win the race. R. D. Nathan got into the lead on lap two in his Lotus Elite and increased it all the way. Eva was completely outhandicapped but he threw the twin-cam around in brilliant style moving up from eleventh on lap three to eighth on lap four and in a final rush to the line he just snatched sixth place after a splendid drive which unfortunately for him netted no points in the MOTOR SPORT Trophy, although he needed but two points to beat Hegbourne. Therefore, Tony Hegbourne became the latest in a long line of distinguished recipients of the MOTOR SPORT Trophy and after the last handicap race, which was won by Hodgson’s Lotus XI, Dixon Cade who is leaving the B.A.R.C. this season presented Tony Hegbourne with the Trophy and the cheque for £75 while David Eva had the consolation of the £50 second prize and the unfortunate Bob Burnard received the third prize of £25. Tony Hegbourne will have to do very well in the seasons to come to improve on the performances of some of the previous recipients of the Trophy such as Mike Hawthorn, Innes Ireland, Peter Lumsden, George Abecassis and so on, but he has shown that he drives the Lola with great skill, and with the Lola being sold during the winter who knows what 1963 will bring.-M. L. T.

Results

10-lap race (Formula Junior): 1st J. Fenning (Lola) 15 min. 05.6 sec. (95.41 m.p.h.); 2nd W. Bradley (Cooper); 3rd J. B. L. Brooke (Lotus). Fastest lap: J. Fenning (Lola) 1 min. 28.4 sec, (97.74 m.p.h.).

5-lap race (for sports cars up to 1,000 c.c.): 1st J. E. Manfield (D.R.W. Ford) 7 min. 47.4 sec. (92.43 m.p.h.); 2nd A. V. Hegbourne (Lola); 3rd P. Boshier-Jones (Lotus 23). Fastest lap: A. V. Hegbourne (Lola) 1 min. 31.6 sec. (94.32 m.p.h.).

5-lap race (for sports cars up to 1,200 c.c.): 1st J. E. Manfield (D.R.W. Ford) 8 min. 33.8 sec. (84.08 m.p.h.); 2nd J. Heskett (Lotus Ford); 3rd P. Arnold (Lotus-Ford). Fastest lap: C. L. Lacey, 1 min. 38.4 sec. (87.80 m.p.h.).

10-lap Marque Scratch Race: 1st D. Eva (M.G.-A Twin-cam) 17 min. 24.6 sec. (82.71 m.p.h.); 2nd D. S. Jones (Triumph TR3); 3rd D. H. Gill (Morgan Plus 4). Fastest lap: D. Eva, 1 min. 43.0 sec. (83.88 m.p.h.).

10-lap scratch race (for sports and G.T. cars – Unlimited): 1st M. G. Beckwith (Lotus 23) 15 min. 26.6 sec. (93.24 m.p.h.); 2nd D. G. Addicott (Lotus Buick); 3rd A. V. Hegbourne (Lola). Fastest lap: D. G. Addicott, 1 min. 30.0 sec. (96.00 mph.).

5-lap handicap race (A) (for Closed Cars): 1st D. P. Merfield (Anglia) 9 min. 41.0 sec. (82.13 m.p.h.); 2nd M. H. Cave (A40); 3rd A. H. Bunco (Tornado-Ford s/c). Fastest lap: D. P. Merfield (Anglia) 1 min. 43.2 sec. (83.72 m.p.h.).

5-lap handicap race (B): 1st R. D. Nathan (Elite) 9 min. 21.6 sec. (79.76 m.p.h.); 2nd J. Bransfield (G.S.M. Delta); 3rd Lord Cross (Daimler SP250). Fastest lap: D. Eva, 1 min. 41.2 sec. (85.37 m.p.h.).

5-lap Handicap race (C): 1st C. A. C. Hodgson (Lotus-Climax) 8 min. 39.2 sec. (89.22 m.p.h.); 2nd Mrs. R. B. Gibbs (Lola-Climax); 3rd J. D. A. Bromilow (Lotus-Ford). Fastest lap: C. A. C. Hodgson, 1 min. 34.2 sec. (91.72 m.p.h.)

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AS OTHERS SEE US

When a reader of Cine Camera wrote suggesting that this magazine should institute test reports on cameras as critical as those of cars in MOTOR SPORT his letter was published with the following footnote :

“Cine Camera is proud to be compared to MOTOR SPORT, who fearlessly tilt at every windmill in the motoring world, and have had their circulation carried high (120,000 plus a month) by their policy. The country’s top auto-makers tried to break the magazine by withdrawing advertising support, have been forced to return by the booming circulation. Editor is a modest, bespectacled genius named Boddy who unblushingly reviews his own books, inevitably finds them to his taste, though usually unearthing a couple of mistakes in them.”

FINES FOR CYCLISTS

It used to be a common dictum of journalism that when a dog bites a man this isn’t worth mentioning but that if a man bites a dog it is news. So much additional money is extracted from heavily-taxed motorists in the form of fines for minor offences that one would have thought that this was of no more interest than dog biting man. Yet local newspapers report in some detail every such case that comes to their notice. It is, therefore, nice to come upon one case where a cyclist and not a motorist was held to blame for an accident. According to the Southend Standard a woman who rode out of Rochford General Hospital into the path of a car, causing it to brake so hard on a wet read that another car ran into the back of it, was fined £3 and £5 2s. 5.5d. costs, although pleading not guilty.