1960's Rallycross at Croft

[mab01uk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anb7B6CFO_U

"Probably between 1966 and 1970.
Vintage short clips from Super 8, of a Rallycross meeting at Croft, perhaps the Feb '69 meeting. Rare footage of Roger Clark in 4WD Capri. Re-digitised from original Super 8 cine film by Dr Brian Watson."

Lets hope that one day the BBC and ITV give access to all the old Rallycross TV recordings in their archives, including the 4 wheel drive Capri's and Mini Clubman 4WD!

[mab01uk]

Sideways Mini (or two). REALLY sideways...also at Croft (1968)

Photo and video: Brian Watson
http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost.php ... tcount=467

[spoon.450]

A few of mine when rallycrossed by previous owner ( John Housley ). Not sure where, although I know he did compete at Croft.

[mab01uk]

Thanks for posting ...........your second photo looks like the startline at Lydden Hill in Kent
http://www.lyddenhill.co.uk/about

[mab01uk]

Rallycross in the good old days - Lydden Last Heats Jan 1973
Don Gilham on Movietone News (TV) Jan1973, WD & HO Wills Rallycross Championship
Don Gilham - Lotus Twin Cam 1650cc Mini-Ford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmTfOdKOyJ4

Rallycross in the good old days - Lydden Finals Feb 1973
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOJzoDKisbI

Rally Cross Final
Description: MOVIETONE CARD TITLE: Rally Cross Final. DESCRIPTION: Rally
Cross Championship 1972/3 Finals held at the Lydden Circuit,
Kent. Don Gilhan wins. SHOTLIST: LV rally cars in paddock
being prepared. SV Don Gilham checking wheels. CU wheel. CU
Gilham. SV Hugh Weldon checking engine. CU Weldon. LV start
of race, pan on No 8 Gilham in Mini Ford. CU pan No 8 LV 4
cars race towards round bend. CU pan No 38 Keith Ripp
driving. CU Gilham No 8 skidding past camera. CU pan No 69
Pauline Nosek driving Cooper S. SV pan start of another
race. SV cars bumping each other, pan No 58. SV car No 120
driven by John Aitkenhead up bank. CU pan No 28 flashes past
driven by Roger Burn (Chrysler Imp). 2 CUs pan No 28 skids
completely round. No 120 having recovered from crash on
bank, continues in race. CU pan No 29 (Alan Jones in Ford
Anglia) side skidding past camera. SV crowd watching. CU
driver in car ready for another start. CU wheel skidding pan
up to cars starting away. LV cars towards camera. CU pan No
2 driven by George Warren. SV 4 Minis flash past camera. CU
No 49 side skidding past camera. LV Mini crashes into bank.
SV pan Minis flashing past. 4 SVs man waving chequered flag.
Pan Gilman in Mini Ford No 8 winning maximum points. Crowd
watching. SV presentation of trophy to Gilham overall winner
with 44 points. [Keith Ripp came 2nd and Rod Chapman, No 46,
came 3rd]
Date: 1973-02-08
Keywords: Sport; Motor racing
Locations: Kent; Lydden
Contributors: Leonard Martin; Reginald William Smith
URL: http://bufvc.ac.uk/newsonscreen/search/ ... tory/29762

[mab01uk]

25 Years of Rallycross - (1992)
As long as enthusiasts enthuse there will always be prolonged debate on the birth of rallycross. Opinion is divided about the first rallycross meeting; some say it took place at Brands Hatch in 1963, others that Lydden was the venue in 1967. The Brands Hatch event was conceived to help the BBC TV Grandstand production team, a one-off meeting designed to fill the void caused by the cancellation of numerous horse racing events because of heavy snow and reoccurring sharp frosts.

Raymond Baxter was charged with conjuring up something exciting – and hey presto! The Monte Carlo Rally had just taken place and so there was an abundance of cars and drivers who were readily available. Bulldozers cut a series of swathes through the deep snow in the car parks at Brands in order to set up a series of special stages and one bitterly cold Saturday a surprisingly large crowd of spectators turned up to watch their own ‘mini-Monte’.

Vic Elford in the AFN Porsche 911 won the first 'Motor Rally-Cross' at Lydden 1967There was a superb entry and Eric Carlsson (Saab), Paddy Hopkirk (Cooper S) and Vic Elford (Vitesse) were all very impressive. But the stars of the show were unboubtedly Timo Makinen and one of the BMC team’s charismatic Austin-Healey 3000 models. The ‘Flying Finn’ thrilled the crowd with his verve and aggression as he hurled the big Healey through the snow drifts and bounced it between the snow banks on his way to victory. The event was called ‘Rallysprint’ and cars started one at a time as there was no room to pass.

Four years passed before Bill Chesson thought of attracting the Monte Carlo rally competitors to his recently completed circuit at Lydden. A promoter in the true sense of the word, Chesson had organised a variety of successful grass-track events at the venue and had laid a tarmac surface just a few months before. He had intended to make it one mile long but a temporary cash-flow problem meant that he had to turn back at the bottom of Hairy Hill to complete the circuit before he ran out of money. The North Bend hairpin loop was added later.
There were two grass tracks at Lydden. One was at the top of the hill behind the current paddock and was called Lydden Hill, while the other was on the same site as the existing circuit and was known as Lydden Autosports track. It seems ironic that certain sections of the motoring press, including Autosport correspondents, failed to understand the difference and until recently persisted in referring to the existing circuit as Lydden Hill.

The organisation of that first rallycross meeting at Lydden was entrusted to the Tunbridge Wells Centre of the 750 Motor Club and coverage by the World of Sport Programme (ABC TV at that time) guaranteed a first-class entry.
Significantly, almost a third of the competitors were driving factory team cars. BMC was represented by Tony Fall and Bob Freeborough in 1275 Cooper S models. For the Rootes Group Peter Harper and Eric Hassell drove Sunbeam Imp specials and there were factory Fords for Roger Clark and Brian Melia. Standard-Triumph relied on Roy Fidler’s Triumph 2000, while Porsche loaned Vic Elford a car through AFN.

Prominent private entrants in twin-cam Lotus Cortinas included Alan Allard, Rod Mansfield, who made his name in circuit racing with an Anglia, Rod Chapman, one of the sports’ first stars and Mike Butler, owner of a motor accessory business in Rochester.
Former British saloon car champion Ray Calcutt had somewhat ambitiously rescued an ageing Sunbeam Rapier from Alan Fraser’s garage, where he worked as a salesman after resigning from his previous job as a patrol car driver for the Kent County Constabulary. Other unlikely entries included John Sprinzel’s MG Midget and a Fiat Abarth for John Aley.

But the most consistently successful car was undoubtedly the Mini in its various forms and in the hands of drivers like Hugh Wheldon, ‘Jumping’ Jeff Williamson, David Preece, Brian Chatfield, Tony Skelton, George Jackson and Don Gilham, the little front-wheel drive machines were well to the fore in the formative years of rallycross. Later on drivers such as Tom Airey, Nick Jesty, Keith Ripp, Mike Bird and David Angel ensured the continuing success of the Mini.
Meanwhile a certain young man from Whistable with a mustard-coloured Mini was beginning to win Autocross events in the area. His name was Will Gollop.
The Full Article continued here:-
http://classiccarmag.net/25-years-of-rallycross/

[LMM76C]

That article is confusing in places. The reference to 1967 runs into a description of the TV the event at Brands in 1963. That 63 event and the following ones at Prescott in 64 and Sweden later was not rallycross - fundamentally so, in that cars ran one at a time. Today it would be called a rallysprint. True roots of rallycross lie in "4 at a time" autocross, as practiced in the south west (and north east, I'm told) until comparatively recent years. There was no definition of rallycross until much later, although it was generally accepted that it had to have a mixed surface rather than the grass of autocross.
There is surely acceptance now that the first rallycross (silly name) was in Kent in early 67, when Elford (a member of Sevenoaks and District Motor Club then and now) borrowed AFN's 911 demonstrator and had it dented in every panel by hooligan driving by Brian Melia and Roger Clark in early works Mk2 Cortina GTs.
I was at the Lydden Hill rallycross that ran the weekend after the cancelled 67 RAC Rally. It was supposed to have been an International event, running cars that had survived the RAC or been fixed after retirement. The foreigners had all gone home by then, grumbling that the Sterling they had bought to do the RAC had just been devalued before they could convert it back...
Liddon (and Easter?) arrived at Lydden on their way to Dover to start the initial recce for the 68 Monte, in a standard red/black roof Cooper S with a roof rack carrying 4 studded tyres.
BMC Works Minis there included those in the photos (in that of GRX5D, you can see Hopkirk and his new wife Jenny and it looks like Abingdon mechanic Brian Moylan.

[Pete]

I think the Brands '63 event wasn't far off a blueprint for what was to become rallycross though, a combination of surfaces (though yes mostly tarmac) but as you say run as a timed sprint not run as a race. It was fairly obvious that as soon as you put four cars on one track it'd become a 'contact sport' though! I used to love watching it on the telly on a Saturday as a kid.

I've got all Baxter's paperwork from when he organised the '63 event, letters from the entrants, sponsors, results and times (all handwritten) which I must get scanned and added to Mark's website.

[mab01uk]

Retro Rallycross Croft - March 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBxzQip6OJE

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_WWcvx5aUw

[mab01uk]

Rallycross of Old!
http://www.rallycrosstube.com/video/519 ... oss-of-old

[LMM76C]

Rallycross of Old!
http://www.rallycrosstube.com/video/519 ... oss-of-old

Shame about the commentary...
Over a voice talking about Roger Clark in a works Cortina is film of what appears to be the ex-works Mk1 Lotus Cortina of Mike Butler - the ex-Soderstrom NVW240C, still with its central blue and yellow (for Sweden) stripe.
Voice then talks of Roger Clark and Brian Melia "preferring the torquier Cortina GT". Like hell! Ford politics dictated they use the Mk2 - and the Mk2 Lotus was not yet homologated