2006

Moss drives a consistent race in the wet to come 11th in PMO while BXN siezes its gearbox and rolls.

                                                                                   Stirling Moss and PMO                               Moving on to the grid                           Sprinzel, Moss & Woolmer

What a fabulous grid for any historic Sprite buff - 15 very special Sprites or Midgets in all their various guises, including an Ashley, a Lenham, two Speedwell GTs, no less than four WSM Sprites, the Ecurie Ecosse car, the ex-John Milne MG Jacobs Midget, an ex-Paddy Gaston works car, Paul Woolmer in the alloy bodied BXN, Jack Wheeler's Sebring, not to mention the two Sprinzel Coupes: PMO200 driven by Sir Stirling Moss, and its sister car S221 by its current owner Chris Clegg. For John Sprinzel who made the long trip over from Hawaii despite health problems there was the added pleasure of seeing 2 SLR Morgans start from the front row (SLR = Sprinzel-Lawrence Racing). The presence of John's former racing comrades Jack Wheeler, Peter Jackson, Douglas Wilson-Spratt, Cyril Simson, and Stirling Moss all helped to make this a great occasion.

 (Pictured left to right: Tom Coulthard, in black hat, John Sprinzel and Peter Jackson)

We were not so lucky with the weather, - heavy grey skies with frequent showers and strong winds. The track was pretty slippery throughout the race. THE START: As the flag fell Van der Kroft's Morgan pulled ahead of Hulett's WSM and Tommasi's Ashley GT, leaving Ahlers' SLR some little way behind. Then a whole crowd of Sprites with the occasional Abarth, Sunbeam or TR thrown in. However Ahlers soon picked himself up and took the lead with Tommasi chasing him. This became a race-long duel with the Ashley sneaking into the lead at one point, then losing it at Madgwick, picking up the pieces after dropping to 3rd or 4th, then pursuing his goal once more. Meanwhile lots of smaller dices were going on throughout the field. Moss changed places with Barry Sidery-Smith in his Le Mans Twin-Cam MGA several times, eventually getting the better of him. Paul Woolmer in BXN had the misfortune to have his transmission seize which sent the car off the track and into a roll. Paul emerged fortunately unscathed but the alloy coupe was fairly crumpled, this on lap 2. However, the fact that Stirling brought Woolmer's other car, the restored PMO home in 11th place should have helped to restore his good cheer. Martin Davidson in Jack Wheeler's restored Sebring 7080AC started 17th on the grid but gradually pulled up to 8th, while Chris Clegg in S221 made an even bigger gain, rising from 22nd to 9th by the finish. Bertini in the metallic blue Speedwell was clearly suffering from a lack of front-end grip the car getting away from him more than once, so that he fell back from his 3rd row start to 13th by the flag. David Wylie in the other Speedwell was the first of the Sprite contingent home finishing 5th overall - well done! By this time Tommasi had managed to squeeze by the SLR again going into the final lap only to throw it all away when he went off at Woodcote Corner.  Hulett's WSM was next Sprite home, then Willis who brought the smart little Jacobs Midget up to 7th place, but Tony Wilson-Spratt's WSM MGB sadly expired just before he could take the finish line.  Richard Skipworth was at the wheel of the re-created Ecurie Ecosse Sprite (featured in the October 2006 issue of Classic & Sports car magazine) and although he had  (Moss pictured right) only a 998cc engine he managed to finish ahead of the two special TRs (I have since learned that Richard had borrowed a 1380cc engine from Robert Dean!!) . Stubbings' Lenham pulled up from 23rd on the grid to 15th place while Elwell retired his Sprite after 11 laps though he had been going well up to that point. Jim Lowry had had an off in practice and the car expired after the opening lap of the race. The two Morgans were the ultimate victors but Sprites dominated the race and made for a very exciting spectacle. (Tommasi chases Ahlers at Madgwick, left)        [More pictures below]

                                                                 The results:

PMO200 driven by Stirling Moss	BXN by Paul Woolmer	Martin Davidson's Sebring	the Speedwell 'camp'	Skipworth's Ecurie Ecosse car
WSMs galore	The amazing Ashley GT	Chris Clegg's S221	Stubbings' Lenham GT	Willis's Jacobs Midget
Bertini's Speedwell GT	Skipworth & Stubbings	Clegg chases Hales	Willis in Jacobs	Cyril Simson & Chris Clegg

and, - this one received from Koenig Der Elfen in Germany:

For another race report from Goodwood and lots more photos go to the WSM site.