1960 / 70's Mini Racing Photos

[mab01uk]

Couple of nice period photos of Mini racer Simon Ridge in the early days at Brands Hatch (around 1966-67) when he was running his own Free Formula car and before the heady days of sponsorship! He later drove for Automex & D J Bond.
Original Photos: Sunrise International Productions B.S.Kreisky (Archive: Martin Henn)

[mab01uk]

Terry Harmer - his last racing Mini 1978 (Mini Racer 1966 to '78)


(Photo: Terry Harmer)
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~terry01/index.html

[Maguire Mini]

Found some photo's I took in the Silverstone paddock in the late sixties, I get the impression Mr Price had an overheating problem !!!

[Pete]

Found some photo's I took in the Silverstone paddock in the late sixties, I get the impression Mr Price had an overheating problem !!!

Crude but effective?!

[mab01uk]

Great old photos, thanks for posting ....as said crude but effective!

Reminds me when we went to a front mounted rad on my brothers 850 Free Formula racer in the early 1970's......but it looked less crude as we turned the standard side mounted rad on its side and soldered up the filler neck hole (as did many others), if you look carefully the remote header tank was made out of the top part of an old Mini rad with a flat plate soldered on the bottom. If anything this setup overcooled and we often had to blank off part of the rad with an aluminium plate.

Photos showing our evolution from side to front mounted rad......







A younger me above just caught on camera in the old Brands paddock!

[mini63]

Great pics....fantastic thread this one!

[Maguire Mini]

Great old photos, thanks for posting ....as said crude but effective!

Reminds me when we went to a front mounted rad on my brothers 850 Free Formula racer in the early 1970's......but it looked less crude as we turned the standard side mounted rad on its side and soldered up the filler neck hole (as did many others), if you look carefully the remote header tank was made out of the top part of an old Mini rad with a flat plate soldered on the bottom. If anything this setup overcooled and we often had to blank off part of the rad with an aluminium plate.

Photos showing our evolution from side to front mounted rad......







A younger me above just caught on camera in the old Brands paddock!

Great pictures mab, I agree yours was a much tidier solution.
Good to see you in younger years, (I used to have hair like that, in fact I used to have hair)
Those Firestone tyres were brilliant compared to the Dunlop's available at the time, we used them in sprinting/hillclimbing in a soft compound, I think they were IB or YB11 and the circuit tyres IB or YB19, they had so much grip my brother had one push off a Mamba wheel on the front, which then dug in and the car cartwheeled into a little ball, I was waiting at the start line for my turn when an official told me he had gone off, they took me up to the wreck, which looked like a tent had been pitched on the grass, the roof up in a point, a re-shell being required.
Found another photo from the B&W set at Silverstone, not a Mini but it had got an A series.

[Pandora]

Found another photo from the B&W set at Silverstone, not a Mini but it had got an A series.

Right, I'm off to take off my bumpers!

Al

[rich@minispares.com]

Found another photo from the B&W set at Silverstone, not a Mini but it had got an A series.

Right, I'm off to take off my bumpers!

Al

i bet it hasn't got big ears hats painted on the front wings.....

[Pandora]

Their loss.

ding ding, went the wing!



Al

[mab01uk]

Those Firestone tyres were brilliant compared to the Dunlop's available at the time, we used them in sprinting/hillclimbing in a soft compound, I think they were IB or YB11 and the circuit tyres IB or YB19, they had so much grip my brother had one push off a Mamba wheel on the front, which then dug in and the car cartwheeled into a little ball, I was waiting at the start line for my turn when an official told me he had gone off, they took me up to the wreck, which looked like a tent had been pitched on the grass, the roof up in a point, a re-shell being required.
Found another photo from the B&W set at Silverstone, not a Mini but it had got an A series.

Nice A40 photo!

We switched from Dunlop dry tyres to the Firestone 1B19 soon after they first appeared and like many of the Free Formula 850's achieved quicker lap times. Firestone 1B19 6.0x19.3x10 dry tyres on 6x10 Mamba alloys with Dunlop CR65 Mk11 (320) 5.00L-10 used on S reverse rims for the wet.
Our previous Dunlop drys were CR81s, in another Mk1 forum thread 'ivor badger 2' suggested:
"A bit depended on which Dunlop dry you used. IB !9s were probably better than 700 CR81s, but against 900 it was probably personal preference. 900s were probably too wide for an 850. Possibly anything was better than a CR70. Again it ended up personal preference between IB19 and Dunlop slicks or car setup."
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17362&start=20#p142923

Found some old Dunlop info here:-
Dunlop Racing Tyres
Tyre Types
CR-65 Pattern
A tyre providing good tread stability in dry and wet conditions. Tyres in this pattern are produced in “L”, “M” and depressed crown constructions to provide the variables required by today’s racing drivers.
CR.81 Pattern
A dry pattern developed for the asymmetric 450/700-10 Mini tyre because of the potentially high rate of wear on all Minis.
Compound Types
184
This is the standard all-purpose compound for use on sports and touring categories, identified by the figures 184 stencilled on the sidewall.
236
This is a dry weather compound developed for the high rate of wear experienced with Minis. This compound is also available in sizes to suit Abarth and Alfa Romeo touring cars for use in long-distance races and is identified by the figures 236 stencilled on the sidewall.
http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archi ... cing-tyres

[mab01uk]

Couple of nice period photos of Mini racer Simon Ridge in the early days at Brands Hatch (around 1966-67) when he was running his own Free Formula car and before the heady days of sponsorship! He later drove for Automex & D J Bond.
Original Photos: Sunrise International Productions B.S.Kreisky (Archive: Martin Henn)

I recently got back in contact with ex-Free Formula Mini racer Simon Ridge who lives local to me and has some great stories and memories of those days, some of which (along with some more photos), I hope he will be able to share with us soon.
In the meantime here is Simons write up from the excellent book 'Mini: The Racing Story' by John Baggott....and also his part in introducing James Hunt to going motor racing with a Mini !










James Hunt's race Mini

[Pete]

Not sure about the story of the James Hunt Mini as published above, pretty sure it came from Ian Mitchell (Charles Clark Motors/John Rhodes)

[mab01uk]

Not sure about the story of the James Hunt Mini as published above, pretty sure it came from Ian Mitchell (Charles Clark Motors/John Rhodes)

Tell me more Pete and I can perhaps ask Simon the source of the story in the book and what he remembers.

[ivor badger 2]

Lots of Mini photos as well as other cars, it is general site. Very high quality photos. Found it while looking for something else.

clourie.co.uk/ingliston

[mab01uk]

Lots of Mini photos as well as other cars, it is general site. Very high quality photos. Found it while looking for something else.

clourie.co.uk/ingliston

Brilliant set of Colin Lourie photos ......thanks for posting the link, just a few of many Mini's below!
http://clourie.co.uk/ingliston/index.html

Quote:
"The Royal Highland Showground at Ingliston, west of Edinburgh, was used as a motor racing circuit from 1965 until 1992.
From 1966 to early 1969, I took photos as a spectator - mainly from Caravan corner. Then, along with Eric Bryce, I was Ingliston’s official photographer for the Scottish Motor Racing Club from August 1969 until 1976 - and took many of the photographs that appeared in race-meeting programmes.
In its day, Ingliston was a great little track. It was tight, the cars were never far from Armco and the racing was invariably close. Motor racing, then, was not a contact sport - and invariably any car with a loose or departing part was black-flagged. Slicks and marbles were unheard of in my days at Ingliston and only laterally did I see anyone stick a thermometer in a tyre.
In October 2010, I started scanning my negatives to show on this website. It’s going to be a big job - having taken upwards of 200 shots at each of six race meetings a year for 7 years. A serious burst of scanning activity in 2015 has brought the total number of photographs to over 500. Hopefully, these photographs fill a gap and help revive a few memories."
Happy viewing.
Colin Lourie

[minimans]

In the first photo is that guy driving the Imp wearing a collar and tie? I thought that died out in the 50's!

[ivor badger 2]

In the first photo is that guy driving the Imp wearing a collar and tie? I thought that died out in the 50's!

By a lot of sorting, it is ian maclaren. I think Andy Barton, 3rd from bottom is actually wearing jeans and a nylon shirt, see page 157 of Baggot's book

[nimbusprint]

In the first photo is that guy driving the Imp wearing a collar and tie? I thought that died out in the 50's!

By a lot of sorting, it is ian maclaren. I think Andy Barton, 3rd from bottom is actually wearing jeans and a nylon shirt, see page 157 of Baggot's book

Lucky he's wearing any kind of shirt, Andy never was a snappy dresser Lots of fab picys also Nice shot of Jonny Blades in his Chevron B8, Jonny also had a very very rapid dark blue/ white roofed mini as a road car.

Ian

[ivor badger 2]

In the first photo is that guy driving the Imp wearing a collar and tie? I thought that died out in the 50's!

By a lot of sorting, it is ian maclaren. I think Andy Barton, 3rd from bottom is actually wearing jeans and a nylon shirt, see page 157 of Baggot's book

Lucky he's wearing any kind of shirt, Andy never was a snappy dresser

Ian

Are you calling Andy's dress sense a poof?