Thruxton's 40th anniversary meeting
The celebration of 40 years of motor racing will make the Easter Monday (24 March) race meeting at Thruxton a very special event as the Historic Sports Car Club plays a key role in a day of racing with a strong element of nostalgia.
The HSCC administers the Historic Formula 2 Trophy, which will headline the race meeting, while the second round of the Millers Oils Historic Formula Junior Championship will offer additional HSCC involvement in the programme.
Back on Easter Monday 1968, Thruxton hosted its first major race meeting, focussed around races for the European Formula 2 Championship and it was young Austrian Jochen Rindt who won the main race. This Easter weekend's major trophy will celebrate Rindt's life and achievements. For over 15 years, the Easter weekend meant F2 racing at Thruxton and many of the biggest names of the sport raced at the Hampshire track right through until the middle 1980s. Now the superb Historic F2 Trophy brings F2 cars of the 1960s and 1970s back to the Hampshire track.
Monday's pair of F2 races will start the Historic F2 season and a fine international 26-car field will take to the high-speed sweeps of Thruxton. Both generations of F2 cars, 1600cc and 2000cc, will share the grid and the 2-litre cars should be at an advantage, with drivers like Steve Maxted (Lola T360), David Gathercole (Chevron B25) and Swedish ace Bo Warmenius (March 772) heading the field. Maxted's car was a podium finisher in one of the F2 heats at Thruxton back in 1975 when raced by American Ted Wentz. However, a host of very quick 1600cc cars from the late 1960s and early 1970s will be chasing hard, notably in the hands of defending champion Martin Stretton and American commuters Duncan Dayton and James King - a European F2 racer in the 1970s - while Thruxton racing school boss Bill Coombs will make his F2 debut at his home track.
Another very notable car in the entry is the Brabham BT30 of Lincoln Small, which was raced when new in 1970 by Derek Bell for the Wheatcroft Racing team. At Thruxton on Easter Monday 1970, Bell took the car to third place behind Jochen Rindt and Jackie Stewart and now, 38 years later, Small will race the car again at Thruxton.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the first Formula 2 race at Thruxton, the HSCC has invited drivers from that first race to return on Easter Monday. Due to be on hand are Harry Stiller, Alan Rees and Chris Irwin.
The second round of the Millers Oils Historic Formula Junior Championship is another rare sight at Thruxton as a fine grid of the rapid single-seaters built between 1958 and 1963 contest a race in the category's Golden Jubilee season. Fans can expect some tremendous slipstreaming battles, with seasoned campaigners like Denis Welch, Simon Armer, James Murray and Steve Smith sure to be to the head of the pack.
