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    Keep Turning Left
    Keep Turning Left
    Keep Turning Left
    Ebook203 pages2 hours

    Keep Turning Left

    By Scott Reeves

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    Success in the world of Formula 2 stock car racing takes a rare combination of aggression, skill and luck. Only the best drivers get to race under the gold roof of the World Champion.

    In Keep Turning Left, twelve top F2 drivers give an open and honest account of racing bumper to bumper in full contact motorsport. They reveal their highs and lows, their motivations and frustrations, their joys and regrets.

    With over 100 colour photographs and intimate access to the drivers, this is a must-read book for every follower of Formula 2 stock car racing.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChequered Flag Publishing
    Release dateOct 24, 2013
    ISBN9781501476884
    Keep Turning Left

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      Book preview

      Keep Turning Left - Scott Reeves

      Foreword by Roy Goodman

      I didn’t intend on becoming a Formula 2 stock car driver. It all came about in 1963 when I’d already been racing Formula 1 stock cars for nearly ten years. A mate of mine, Ted Elliott, built a Formula 2 car and decided to race it. In those days, we used a complete road car that you just had to strengthen up. There was no special frame or anything, you’d use the original chassis. Ted kept asking me for advice. I couldn’t help laughing at him, his Ford Pop needed loads of work to make it raceable – it didn’t even have any shock absorbers on it! He didn’t listen to me so I took the mickey out of him a lot, until one time at Northampton he said, if you reckon you can do better, then you do it!

      So I got in the car and went out and won my first race in it! Chick Woodroffe was in that race and he got a bit stroppy. I pushed him wide and got by, so after the race he tried to ram me. When he saw me get out, he said, you bugger, I didn’t realise it was you!

      After that, Ted Elliott didn’t want to use the car. I raced it for three meetings and won the final every time, but I felt a bit bad for him, like I was taking the prize money out of his pocket. I told him that I wanted to buy the car off him and we agreed a price. But it didn’t last – not long after I bought it I put it in the fence and had to build another one!

      That same year, 1963, the first ever Formula 2 World Championship was held. In those days, all drivers started both semi-finals and the grid was reversed for the second race. I won the first race from pole position then won the second race after coming all the way through from the back. The World Final was at Swindon and since I won both semis, I started from pole position. It was very wet – the track was a mud pit! There was only one racing line and cars were going out all over the track. I went into the fence at one point, drifting out by putting my wheels on the wet, but I came straight back onto the line again. Nobody passed me, so I led the race from the green flag to the chequered.

      It was the only time I won the World Final but I was one of the best performers in Formula 2 for eleven years or so. I won the National Points Championship nine times. Then Tom Pitcher came along – he was a great driver too – then Bill Batten. Rob Speak took over from him, now I think it’s moved on to Gordon Moodie.

      I think my wife was the main reason for my success. She was nearly in tears when I said I was going to retire, but by then I’d done enough. After all, by that point I was 75 years old and I’d been racing stock cars for fifty years! I won the very last race I went in at the end of 2004, so I won my first and last races in Formula 2 and a fair few inbetween.

      During that time, there were a lot of changes in the sport. It got more professional. You couldn’t go to a scrapyard and pick up a car any more; you had to fabricate the parts. As cars became more complicated, driving styles changed too. However, I think all the drivers who raced with me in 1963 – Chick Woodroffe, Fred Funnell, Danny Bassett and Jonny Marquand among them – would recognise and enjoy the Formula 2 stock cars that race today.

      To mark the fiftieth running of the World Championship in 2012, I was approached by the promoter at Barford who was hosting the World Final. He wanted me to start the race at the back of the grid. I thought he was having a joke! I wasn’t sure about it, I didn’t want to interfere in the races of the drivers who had qualified, but I agreed to think about it. When I got to the meeting, the promoter had arranged for an old heritage car to be at the track. It was painted up in my colours and had my number 800 on it. He asked me to use it to lead off the rolling laps as a pace car since I didn’t want to take part from the back. I said, hang on, I haven’t made my mind up yet, I quite fancy racing from the back! But now they didn’t have a car for me. Ten minutes later, they had found a driver willing to lend me their car to take part in the race and the person who owned the heritage car said he would drive it on the rolling laps.

      I think I did a bit more than I was supposed to! I was meant to pull off as soon as they waved the green flag, but I kept going! I didn’t want to affect the result, but I knew that I would have a bit of time before the cars at the front caught up to me. Then there was a pile-up at the start of the second lap. There were about six cars in the fence and I went by. Christ, I thought, I’m in the race now! I had cars in front of me and cars behind me. I didn’t want to block anybody, so I decided to get out of the race and pulled onto the centre.

      It reminded me that we’re all friends in the pits, but you’ve got no friends on the track. When you see the gate being shut, it’s every man for himself. People have asked me if I ever let anybody past so they could win. No way! When you come from the back of the grid, all you have in mind is passing the car in front. Sometimes it can be a bit of a shock when you see the lap boards come out showing that you’re in the lead – that’s when you get even more determined to win it!

      I certainly enjoyed my small role in the 2012 World Final. Maybe I’ll pull on my helmet and get strapped in a stock car again for the sixtieth running of the World Championship in 2022! But seriously, it’s a great sport to be involved in, and I’m pleased to have played my part.

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      Roy Goodman

      World Champion 1963, National Points Champion 1964, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975

      The 2012 World Final

      Barford Raceway in rural County Durham is not the most luxurious of venues. No corporate hospitality boxes, no helicopter pad, no media hub. But it does have one important feature, something that attracted 36 BriSCA Formula 2 stock car drivers on 9th September 2012. It has a quarter-mile oval race track.

      On that patch of tarmac, drivers would fight it out for the biggest prize in their sport – the gold roof; reserved for the reigning World Champion, the driver at the pinnacle of the sport.

      For seven months, drivers had been racing in qualifying events to earn points and win the right to compete in one of two World Championship Semi-Finals. Those that finished in the top ten went through to the World Final alongside a number of seeded foreign competitors.

      Glorious sunny weather greeted each driver as they rolled onto the track in reverse grid order. First were six drivers at the back who had only just made it onto the grid less than 24 hours earlier in the Consolation Semi-Final, a last chance for some lucky losers who failed first time round. Among them was George MacMillan Junior, racing in an emotional haze after losing his father to cancer 21 days earlier. To his right was Sam Wagner, a young and local hopeful trying to sneak the biggest prize in his own backyard. Behind MacMillan sat Chris Burgoyne, the biggest name who didn’t make it through the original semi-finals, who would have to do it the hard way if he were to justify his tag as one of the pre-season favourites to win the World Championship.

      Further forward, a combination of blue and red roofs marked each driver who had won a place through the regular qualifying system. Normally, the roof colour indicates where each driver starts on the grid. Newer, less-experienced drivers start at the front and carry a white roof. As they gain experience and finish races, drivers earn points and are upgraded – first to a yellow roof, starting behind the whites. Then they continue to move further back to a different grade with a different roof colour, to blue, then red. Only the top men in the sport could have a red roof with flashing amber lights signifying that they were a superstar.

      The World Final was different. No graded grid, instead a line up packed with the top names only. But there was still only one gold roof. This year, the defending champion was Mark Simpson. He parked on the inside of the eighth row, probably too far back to be in with a good chance of retaining his title, but still better than the fifteenth row start he had in the last World Final – which he won.

      On the outside of the eighth row, next to Simpson, was the driver who was most familiar with the gold roof. Rob Speak had won the World Championship on eight different occasions, all in the 1990s, a period of domination in the sport that will surely never again be matched. Arguably the finest oval motorsport driver ever, an on-form Speak could see the eighth row as little more than a minor inconvenience on his way to the title.

      A short hop from Speak, four rows in front, was his major rival. Gordon Moodie was one of the few who could ever hope to match Speak’s achievements. His silver roof signified that he was the season-long National Points Champion, the seventh time that he carried that honour. Behind Moodie was Chris Bradbury, one of only two drivers to have taken the silver roof from Moodie over the past ten seasons. To Moodie’s left was Jack Aldridge, a mere newcomer by comparison with the man next to him, but one who seemed to offer the potential to become the undisputed top driver of the next generation.

      In front of Aldridge and Moodie were the top foreigners. Unable to compete in the British qualifying series, the foreign entrants were seeded onto every third row and their positions decided by time trials. The fastest of these men was Denver Grattan of Northern Ireland, who took up an enviable spot on the inside of the third row.

      At the business end of the grid were the top performers in the World Championship Semi-Finals. John Dowson Junior and Barry Goldin had won those races and lined up on the front row. Dowson was the young local, a surprise semi-final winner who wanted to grab his chance with both hands. Barry Goldin was in more familiar territory.

      Between Dowson on pole and Grattan on the inside of the third row sat Micky Brennan. A young driver who had flown under the radar for most of the season, Brennan could still count on plenty of experience gained during his short career, including winning the World Championship crown three years earlier. Who would bet against him doing so again?

      The parade lap over; the drivers were strapped in to their cars and silence slowly descended over the racetrack. Then, with the traditional call of gentlemen, start your engines, 36 two-litre racing engines fired into life.

      The slow rolling lap gave all drivers a last chance to eye up the track on which 25 laps would decide the next World Champion. The tarmac surface was surrounded by a steel-plate fence that would damage an unwary driver who wandered off his line – or who was pushed off it. On the inside of the corners, concrete kerb mounds prevented cars cutting the corner. For those who felt that it was all becoming too much, the green grass of the infield offered sanctuary.

      This being the fiftieth running of World Final, the cars were led round the rolling lap by a replica of a late-sixties Formula 2 stock car run by Roy Goodman, the first winner of the championship in 1963. At the back of the grid, Goodman himself lined up in a borrowed car, an 83-year old veteran who was invited to join in the rolling lap. He sensibly chose to escape to the infield once racing began.

      The pink-bodied heritage car at the front showed just how much the sport had evolved over the past decades. Then, a stock car could almost have driven off the track and onto the road for the journey home. Now they were custom-built, highly-tuned pieces of racing craftsmanship. However, two important similarities remained between Goodman’s sixties car and the modern one he borrowed – a steel front bumper and a steel back bumper. This was contact motorsport.

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