1961 Tourist Trophy at Goodwood: Seventh T.T. For Moss

Britain’s oldest motor race, the Tourist Trophy, held for the fourth time at Goodwood, received an entry which could hardly be called International and when no less than seven of the entries withdrew, the race lost much of its interest. The Ferraris of Seidel and Berney were withdrawn from the big-car class, as were the Jaguar E-types of McLaren and Wicken; the latter, not having shown outstanding speed or reliability in sprint events, were withdrawn, reputedly on advice from the factory. This left the Ferraris of Moss and Parkes to face three Aston Martins, two Zagato-bodied ones for Salvadori and Clark and a normal-bodied one for Innes Ireland, all entered by John Ogier.

The other entry in this class was a Chevrolet Corvette entered by American driver A. I. Markelson, which was not seriously considered. With five Porsches in the 2-litre class, four of them Abarth-bodied, two being from the works for Graham Hill and Herbert Linge, the Morgans and the sundry other sports cars which made up this class looked unlikely to get a look in. In the 1,300-c.c. class Volonterio withdrew his slow Alfa Romeo Giulietta SVZ and Mackenzie withdrew his Turner, leaving nine Elites to contest the class.

In practice Moss had a mild shunt in the Ferrari when a tyre burst but made fastest practice time on Thursday in 1 min. 34.8 sec., to Parkes’ 1 min. 35.2 sec. On Friday he stepped into an aeroplane before practice finished to fly to Morecambe to switch on the illuminations, and Parkes did a bit of gamesmanship, roaring round in his bright red Ferrari to record 1 min. 34.4 sec. Salvadori was the fastest Aston with 1 min. 36.6 sec, and, barring misfortune, a Ferrari win for Moss, in the same Car with which he won last year, looked to be certain.

1961 Tourist Trophy race

At the start Parkes made a good getaway, followed closely by Moss and the Astons, and only Peter Lumsden was left on the line in his Elite. On the first lap Parkes led by a whisker from Moss, with Clark, Salvadori, Graham Hill, Hahnl’s Porsche, Bill Allen’s Elite and the Morgans of Shepherd-Barron and Lawrence in close attendance. Gradually the field sorted itself out, with the faster cars which had made poor starts working towards the front of the field, Lumsden storming along and breaking the class lap record, while Moss took the lead from Parkes on lap eight, these two being well in front of the Astons of Salvadori, Clark and Ireland.

Graham Hill held a secure sixth place, obviously enjoying himself with the Porsche, but Fritz Hahnl was being embarrassed by Bill Allen’s Elite and Shepherd-Barrow’s Morgan. Parkes began to get a little wild in his efforts to keep with Moss and soon managed to demolish the wattle fencing at the chicane, and thereafter he regularly hung the tail out over the grass. The boot lid of Clark’s Aston came open, but he was not black-flagged and he waited until his pit called him in. Olthoff’s M.G. Twin-Cam set fire to its passenger’s seat and he stopped to have the exhaust pipe bent clear, while Shepherd-Barron had to drop out of his excellent 10th place because his back axle was beginning to seize, and Graham Warner, who had been moving through the field after a poor start, stopped on Lavant Straight and abandoned the car. Porsche lost a car when Linge, who had never been very high on the lap chart, pulled off at St. Mary’s.

Parkes made the first of his expected four stops for tyres after 19 laps, or just over 30 minutes of racing. The rear tyres were changed and he left within 40 sec. Next in was Salvadori, who changed all the tyres on the heavy Aston Martin and took on 5 gallons of fuel in just over a minute. Moss waited until his 24th lap before he came in to change all the tyres and take on a churn of fuel, taking only 34.9 sec. for his stop. One by one the big cars made their stops, the race order alternating according to who was in the pits and how long they stayed, but Moss was obviously going several more laps than Parkes on each set of tyres, hoping for one less change. Moss did not lose the lead after his stop and held Parkes at bay with a regular 7-sec. gap.

Incidents were ten-a-penny and the crowded stand opposite the pits received its moneys-worth with all the frenzied action. Shepherd-Barron had taken over Marten’s Morgan while the pit crew attempted to change a half-shaft on his own car, but it was eventually retired. Keith Green’s Porsche Carrera was in trouble with brakes and eventually a front brake drum was changed. Les Leston and Peter Lumsden were taking it in turns to break the class lap record in their Elites and Parkes broke the G.T. record with 1 min. 35.4 sec. (90.57 m.p.h.). The Corvette was causing no little amusement by holding everyone up on the corners and then steaming away from them on the straights, but traces of thick smoke from the exhaust spelled impending doom. The car had overheated and blown a gasket and it soon became a mobile smoke cloud, but the driver persisted in motoring round despite being shown the black flag several times, and eventually Markelson had to be practically arrested before he could be persuaded to retire.