Racing lines: how Superprix led motorsport out of lockdown

RUMBLING THUNDER

Forty years ago, Thundersports gave a new lease of life to ‘big-banger’ sports cars made obsolete by the Group C era and was a particular favourite for this impressionable boy.

The HSCC’s welcome series revival has pulled off the same trick, bringing together a diverse selection of beautifully prepared 1970s sports cars. But there was little surprise that even the fastest failed to beat Dean Forward’s 8.0-litre ‘big block’ Chevrolet-powered M8F, which rumbled through a misfire and a lost fourth gear to a Superprix win – although it was Jonathan Mitchell’s rapid Chevron B19 that took the honours on Sunday, after a fuel leak sent Forward backwards.

James Hagan’s ex-Hunt Hesketh was the lone F1 car that lined up for the Aurora single-seater series that taps into the spirit of the 1970s British F1 Championship, which originally carried the same exotic name, courtesy of title sponsor and cult model car maker Aurora AFX. But Hagan’s open-goal victory against a libre mix of Formula 2, Formula 3 and Formula Atlantic cars was undone by Michael Lyons, who took over his mother Judy’s 5.0-litre Gurney Eagle FA74 F5000 after crashing his own car in practice.

Lyons roared out from the pit lane, tore through the pack and gobbled up the 308 in a performance that carried echoes of Peter Gethin’s giant-killing Brands win at the 1973 Race of Champions, when his F5000 Chevron (also on the grid at this year’s Superprix) belied its makeweight status to beat a host of F1 stars, including Hunt, who finished third that day in a Hesketh-run Surtees. Everything comes around.

Another highlight was a host of pretty Chevron B6 and B8 GTs being pitted against a beautifully restored Lenham P69 sports car that was shared with gusto by Lyons and former BTCC ace Anthony Reid. A safety car period mixed up the order in the Guards Trophy, named in honour of the 1960s GT race sponsored by the now-defunct tobacco brand (how motor racing used to love its nicotine). Lyons and Andy Newall, driving solo in his B6, rose back to the front, but by then father-and-son duo Westie and Sam Mitchell were too far up the road in their rare left-hand-drive B8.

It was great motorsport, much like it used to be, and, for the few who took another step back towards normality, just the tonic.

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