mk1-forum.net

Behind the Vita...

a topic from 2013 ...
but
Also today I have it in my collection. I have see it many time but now I found it on a indoor show for 5€ complete. It's mine

WesleyB wrote:a topic from 2013 ...
but
Also today I have it in my collection. I have see it many time but now I found it on a indoor show for 5€ complete. It's mine

Glad you found one complete for your collection and for a good price!

Stuart and I did lots of homework on this and found pretty much all of the detail behind it and I wrote a bit to go in Mini mag and did some then-and-now pics but the then current editor didn't seem to want to feature it

I have sent it to the current editor who has similarly not expressed interest

It was quite the tale of a couple of extraordinary circumstances and I shall persevere to feature it somewhere as well as to our jolly closet anorak group, before too long

Tim Harber wrote:Stuart and I did lots of homework on this and found pretty much all of the detail behind it and I wrote a bit to go in Mini mag and did some then-and-now pics but the then current editor didn't seem to want to feature it

I have sent it to the current editor who has similarly not expressed interest

It was quite the tale of a couple of extraordinary circumstances and I shall persevere to feature it somewhere as well as to our jolly closet anorak group, before too long

Have you tried Karen Drury editor of MiniWorld?
https://miniworld.co.uk/contact/

Now there's a thought

Some modern jigsaw puzzles for children and adults featuring classic Minis (ideal for self isolating) .....although those shown below with Minis seem to be showing 'currently out of stock' they can also be found from other suppliers on ebay & amazon:-
https://www.jigsawpuzzlesdirect.co.uk/m ... Of+Puzzles

The House of Puzzles Big 500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle - Classic Style, from The Torridon Collection by House of Puzzles:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Puzzles- ... B07TC87375

or this 1000 pieces

As i could not go out and celebrate my birthday i stayed at home and made this

this is a nice on !

I finally put this on Facebook as I could see that 10 years after the first encounter, if it wasn't going to get exposed somewhere I may have disappeared altogether

1 Jigsaw top + side by Tim Harber, on Flickr

Putting together the pieces - 10 years later

It all started with a posting on the Autosport Forum in 2010 where someone had bought a Dutch- produced jigsaw showing a club racing grid full of Minis at Brands Hatch in the 1960’s or early 70’s. The poster asked for details of the meeting. No success. Then in 2013 I happened to see the same jigsaw for sale at the Castle Combe Mini day so I bought it, unbeknownst that I had just nicked it from under the nose of my mate Stuart who had gone to fetch some cash.
We both then started to investigate it. Various suggestions of date and people on the grid were made without confirmation. To be honest, Minis were so common in the late 60’s that races were pretty routine - I used to live locally to Brands and cycled there before I began driving and spent more time looking at sports cars and single seaters because the quantity of Minis was mind-numbing.
The clues were: There was advertising on the cars and one car has 12” wheels on the front so it was definitely after 1968 when bigger wheels and advertising started to appear – remember John Player Team Lotus? No-one I met could throw light on who was on the grid, not even Whizzo Williams, who I thought knew everyone. The pole sitter was an Island Blue car entered by D J Bond Racing. I knew they entered Terry Harmer and there are pictures of him in similar blue Mini in a very successful 1968 season but the trail went cold.

2 Terry Harmer Brands paddock by Tim Harber, on Flickr

Then, another clue appeared. I noticed that I had taken a picture of the grid in 1967 when I went to the BOAC 500kms race on one of the few times I got treated to a grandstand seat by my dad. I noticed that the clock was different to the jigsaw, so we set off on a search to find when the clock had changed.

3 Motor 6 hours 64 maybe by Tim Harber, on Flickr
4 Clock BOAC 1967 by Tim Harber, on Flickr
5 Clock Race of Champions 22.3.70 by Tim Harber, on Flickr
6 Clock tower jigsaw by Tim Harber, on Flickr

At about the same time a customer came into my office where the jigsaw was on the wall. Like a bolt out of the blue, he said that not only he knew where the clock was, but it was up and running and he was sponsoring the upkeep of it. It was at Castle Combe!

8 Clock tower 2014 at Combe by Tim Harber, on Flickr
9 Clock tower 2014 by Tim Harber, on Flickr

Enter my sometime chum Rodney Gooch, who I had met through our exploits at the Mini Action days with Mighty Minis racers giving rides for charity. In the early 1970’s Rodney was employed by Aerosigns to supply and fit the trackside advertising at racing circuits.
Untitled by Tim Harber, on Flickr
The second-generation clock which dated from 1970 was a bit tired by the early 1980’s and had been removed at Brands when the pits got rebuilt. In 1986 Rodney arranged for Pirelli to sponsor a revised clock, £6000 worth. He ended up with the clock in his garage where a scaffold tube frame was constructed for it. The clock itself is a bit involved as they realised that in those days you couldn’t rely on hoping that four separate clocks will agree to tell the same time. The answer in was to have one clock mechanism with bevelled gears driving each face which meant that it was relatively technical. Having sorted the frame, it went off to a clock maker near Colchester who fitted the movement, came back to get the signs installed and it got winched into position.
7 Clock Brands 1982 not there by Tim Harber, on Flickr
Forward to 1991 Rodney was working with Howard Strawford who had bought Castle Combe Circuit and had been upgrading it since the late 1970’s. Howard wanted a clock at the track, but no budget. Then in 1994 Rodney spotted the Pirelli clock in the pile of rubble when the pits and commentators’ building was being knocked down at Brands. Rodney arranged for Combe to have it with the sponsors signs removed, for free! He arranged for Mitsubishi to sponsor the rebuild and got local Formula Ford ace Bob Higgins to take it to Rodney’s mate in Bude where it got refreshed and it got installed. So, Howard got his clock for free.
It’s still there down near the scrutineering bay in the same spec but has changed sponsor, isn’t working and is looking a bit sad, and you can be forgiven for never having noticed it. I certainly never had.
10 Clock tower 2021 by Tim Harber, on Flickr
Anyway, back on the dating; we now tracked down that the clock had changed between the 1970 Race of Champions in March and the Grand Prix in July. There were daffodils in the jigsaw so it was unlikely that it was 1970 so it was looking like 1971. Bit more research and bingo, we got it: April 18th 1971. The race started at 14.30 so even the clock was working ok as it shows two minutes to go! We even got a copy of the programme and it shows on pole position was a lady – entered by D J Bond Racing as noted – Mrs J. Dell - very formal. We even got a copy of the programme.
12 Programme by Tim Harber, on Flickr
13 Entry list by Tim Harber, on Flickr
Then I got a copy of Autosport magazine from the following week and the race report breaks into first name terms:
“Minis dominated the up to 1 litre saloon race and it was Jenny Dell’s version that held a tenuous lead over the squabbling Tony Dixon, Tony Thorne, Micki Vandervell and Dave Hipperson. They were joined on the third lap by Trevor Moore’s Mini which had come through from the sixth row, and Moore moved towards the head of the queue in pursuit of Mrs Dell. On the fifth lap Jenny fumbled the gears at Clearways allowing Thorpe in front from Moore with Mrs Dell holding off Dixon and Micki Vandervell. The impressive Moore took the lead on the next lap and held a small advantage till the end. Jenny Dell was within a second of Thorpe by the finish and Dixon and Micki maintained stations behind. Hipperson’s Copy Run Mini printed spinning marks on the track at Clearways on the fourth lap and dropped to last. Bernard Lingard started from the 10 sec / back row mark with his Alka Seltzer Mini but soon recovered to finish sixth from the leading 850, David Canacott in yet another Mini “.

15 Jenny Dell +others by Tim Harber, on Flickr
Jenny Dell and Gabriel Konig by Tim Harber, on Flickr

Fast forward to 2014 there was a revival of the Mini Racing Festival from the late 1960’s. I race a historic Mini so I couldn’t let the occasion pass and got an entry in the pre-66 race. Stuart took pics of the start of my race which obligingly had a yellow Mini which echoed 1971.

16 Grid 2014 by Tim Harber, on Flickr

The mandatory safety fencing and the Guantanamo Bay dress code didn’t add to the mood so we went back after racing, I parked my Island Blue car on pole and re-created Mrs. Dell’s moment from 43 years earlier, with me as the token driver and David Willey representing MSV.

17 Grid 2014 just Tim by Tim Harber, on Flickr
18 Grid 2014 by Tim Harber, on Flickr
However, this has now all changed a bit; Rodney passed away in 2019, bless him. Wouldn’t it be nice to get the clock going again in his memory as much as anything – a lovely man.

Thank you for this time travel, Sherlock !

Great story and thanks for sharing.
I really hope the clock can get repaired and going again in his memory!

Out of interest car No. 23 in the programme for the 'Up to 850cc class' was Robin Brookes (photos in link below). My late older brother Ray Bell also raced in the 850cc class in that era and knew Robin and his dad Frank who was the entrant quite well and we were often parked alongside each other in the paddock. Robin Brookes Mini had a 'state of the art' Longman short stroke 850 at the time, along with an immaculately prepared 'ultimate free formula spec' lightweight aluminium paneled de-seamed bodyshell we could only dream of....my brother being on a much smaller budget which would really have been better suited to 850 Mini Seven.....which did happen a few years later with help from Chris Tyrrell, when my younger brother Steve won the Mini 7 Championship in 1997 (before eventually moving into Mini Miglia).
Free Formula 850 Special Saloon (1972) :-
https://mk1-forum.net/viewtopic.php?p=91521#p91521

The tow car for our 850 Mini racer was a 1964 Mk1 Cortina Estate with Rostyle wheels bought in 1971 off our local Surbiton based race team D.J.Bond who sponsored and entered several race Minis in that era, their signwriting was later removed (see photo in link below) but was kept in D.J. Bonds team colour scheme of metallic blue and white:-
https://mk1-forum.net/viewtopic.php?p=242914#p242914