Race of Champions

Brands Hatch, 17 Mar 1968

All cars are 3-litre F1 unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. Brabham BT21 [33] (Peter Gethin): New to Sports Motors (Manchester) for Peter Gethin to race in European F3 in 1967. Then to Frank Lythgoe and fitted with a 2-litre BMW engine for Peter Gethin to race at the 1968 race of Champions. Then to John Miller in Scotland and used in libre racing over the next three seasons, including two appearances in the 1969 Formula 5000 series. Sold to Alasdair Pearson car 1972, and run in the Burmah-Castrol Scottish Hill Climb Championship. Advertised in October 1972 from a Glasgow number as a BT21/23C with an Alan Smith BMW engine and a comment that it had only been used in hillclimbs and sprints that season. To Paul Maxwell for Monoposto from 1973 onwards.
2. Lola T100 [SL100/6] (John Surtees): New for John Surtees to drive for Lola Racing at Mallory Park in May 1967, fitted with a Cosworth FVA engine. Surtees won at Mallory, and the next race at Zolder. This was then the team's main FVA car, as SL100/2 had been rebuilt in narrow-track form, and SL100/4 had been sold to David Bridges. Raced by Chris Irwin from July onwards, then by Andrea de Adamich at Enna. Raced by Irwin in F2 in early 1968, but after Irwin was badly injured in sports car race in May, the T100 was sold to Escuderia Nacional CS to replace SL100/8 that had been wrecked by Alex Soler-Roig. Raced by Soler-Roig for the rest of the 1968 season. To John Watson (Craigavad, County Down, Northern Ireland) and fitted with a Ford twin cam for local libre racing in 1969. To Dave Furlong (Dublin, Ireland) for 1970, then to John Burke (Dublin) for 1971. It was raced by Richie Conroy for Burke in 1972, then by Burke again in libre racing in 1973. Advertised by Burke, still with Ford twin cam engine and Hewland FT200 gearbox, in November 1973. Subsequent history unknown, but said by a later owner to have been owned by Bob Eccles (Oldbury, West Midland) in the late 1970s. If that is correct, it would be the second T100 that Eccles acquired as a source of spares for his main car. It is then believed to be the car raced by Pat Speer in HSCC events in 1985. Ted Walker then had two Lola T100s, probably the two ex-Eccles cars, and one remained in pieces while he had them, logically this one. According to a later Bonhams sale description, this car was owned by Speer in the 1970s, and was acquired by Louis Bernat (Chicago, IL) in 1989. Bernat died in 1997, and the car was advertised by his son Robert Bernat (Chicago, IL) in 2005, bought by Paul Busby, and returned to England. Sold at the Bonhams Brooklands auction in December 2011 to Robs Lamplough, but later sold back to Busby in 2015.

Sources

Note that the identification of individual cars in these results is based on the material presented elsewhere in this site and may in some cases contradict the organisers' published results.

3-litre Formula 1 Non-championship events 1966-1983

These results were initially compiled by Allen Brown, but these were in the very basic form required to track individual car histories. Since then further details, such as laps completed, qualifying times and so on, have been added from Rob Ryder's extensive database.

All comments, clarifications, corrections and additions are most welcome. Please email Allen (allen@oldracingcars.com) if you can help with our research.

Individual sources for this event

Autosport 22 Mar 1968 pp10-14. Motor Sport April 1967 pp264-265 and 'Notes on the Cars at Brands Hatch' on p263. Motoring News 21 Mar 1968 pp12-14. Autosport mentioned chassis numbers for most cars, but called the BRM P133 a P139. Motor Sport gave chassis numbers for the major teams, and gave limited information about the privateers. Motoring News did not provide a table of data but did mention most chassis identities. All three publications showed Gethin as having finished tenth, despite him being 14 laps adrift.