Goodwood Revival 2006

What a fabulous grid for any historic Sprite buff - 15 very special Sprites and Midgets in all their various guises including an Ashley, a Lenham, two Speedwells, no less than four WSMs, the Ecurie Ecosse replica, the ex-John Milne Midget, an ex-Paddy Gaston works car, Paul Woolmer in the alloy-bodied BXN, Jack Wheeler's Sebring, not forgetting the two Sprinzel coupés: PMO 200 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 two 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.

We were not so lucky with the weather - heavy grey skies with frquent 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 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 coupé 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 rebuild his good cheer. Martin Davidson in Jack Wheeler's rebuilt 7080AC started 17th on the grid but gradually pulled up to 8th, while Chris Clegg in S221 made an even bigger gain from 22nd to 9th by the finish. Bertini in the metallic blue Speedwell GT 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 the final lap Tommasi had managed to squeeze by the SLR again into the lead only to throw it all away when he went off at Woodcote. Hulett's WSM was next of the Spridgets home, then Willis in the Midget GT in 7th, 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 & Sportscar magazine) and although he had only a 998cc engine he managed to finish ahead of the two special TRs. [Correction: 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's WSM Midget had had an off in practice and the car expired after the opening lap of the race. The two SLR Morgans were the ultimate victors but Sprites dominated the race and made for a very exciting spectacle.

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