The response to our first TR7 V8 challenge has been very positive. Amongst the seven entrants so far are three ex-works cars. Bert Smeets is our first foreign competitor and brings from Belgium Per Eklund's BP Rallysprint winning car of '79 which was also driven by Simo Lampinen on three World Championship events that year.
Dave Rayner will be bringing the last car ever built by the factory and which was driven in 1980 by Per Eklund, Timo Makinen on the 1000 Lakes Rally, and finally John Buffum on the RAC Rally. He will be co-driven by Stuart Harrold who was co-driver in '79 for Graham Elsmore who should also be at Goodwood.
Hopefully Tony Maslen will be bring long the car in which Tony Pond/Fred Gallagher competed on the Welsh, Scottish and Burmah Rallies. In '79 Irish driver Derek Boyd took it on the Galway and Circuit of Ireland rallies and after that it is believed that it was used by Graham Elsmore and Terry Kaby.
With more modern engineered cars from Alistair Flack, Stephen Hall, David Pedley and Paul Hunter the challenge looks set to entertain!
As well as TR7 V8s there are two other noteworthy cars to look out for.
One is the Aston Martin Rally GT of Alan Thistlethwaite. The Aston, which is a rare beast to find in modern day rallying is based on the baby V8 Vantage and is one of four such cars built by Prodrive for Aston Martin in 2006 and is prepared by David Appleby Engineering. Four of these cars were built for rallying in Europe where they cater for this category of car. They were also used at the 2006 Race of Champions at Wembley where this car was driven by Alastair McRae, six times and current World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb and seven times World F1 Drivers Champion Michael Schumacher.
In contrast to the sleek lines of the powerful Aston is the Morris Marina which will be having its debut outing after a ten year restoration by its owner and driver Trevor Godwin of Coventry Engineering. It is the ex-British Leyland Special Tuning car which their stalwart driver Brian Culcheth drove to a class win on the 1971 RAC Rally. Brian will be visiting the event to be reunited with his former steed.
Add to these the backbone of British rallying, the club drivers, with their many and varied machines which include two previous winners of this event #65533; last years victor Adrian Brown in his 2.4 Escort MkI and his predecessor back to try and reclaim the crown, Simon Mauger, this time with a new Millington 2.5 litre engined Escort MkII.
So if you like variety in your rallying and you want to be entertained and be able to see these cars and competitors up close then Goodwood is the place to be on February 6th.
[8 whole cylinders worth of punch to ram the world through the windshield and out the rear view mirror. Car & Driver]
1981 Grinnall TR7 v8
1981 Black FHC
1979 & 1980 Black Premium FHC(laid to rest) Sorry
John
